• Cambridge Analytica leveraged vast amounts of personal data to influence political outcomes.
• Data was used to build individual personality profiles, which were then targeted with customized ads.
• Doubts persist about the real extent and effectiveness of this approach.

Cambridge Analytica (CA) was a company specialized in gathering and analyzing personal data for political campaigns. It aimed to predict individuals' behavior, opinions, and values, and nudge them towards their client's desired outcome - a practice called microtargeting.

Example: Imagine you're a chocolate fan and you've been liking and sharing chocolate-related posts on Facebook. A company like Cambridge Analytica uses this data to figure out your love for chocolate. So, during an election campaign, a candidate might target you with ads about their plans to reduce chocolate prices or promote chocolate production. That's microtargeting.

CA's CEO, Alexander Nix, boasted that their data-driven approach played a key role in President Trump’s election win in 2016. In another case, the Leave.eu campaign, which advocated for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, allegedly utilized CA's data to tailor highly individualized ads.