Advertising supports many key services on the web, such as search engines like Google. However, research has shown that many consumers consider such advertising to be relatively unhelpful -- or even untrustworthy. Left unaddressed, this misalignment between consumers, advertisers, and the services that require both to succeed could undermine the fundamental economics of the Internet.
The purpose of this project is to examine this problem from the perspective of intelligent interactive systems to determine if new features could be applied to online advertising to make it more helpful and more trustworthy. For example, ads might incorporate real-time, independent information and "trust signals" from authoritative third-party sites.