Targeted advertising has been around for a long time without all this creepy tracking. I recently switched car insurance due to a targeted advertisement. It was

Targeted advertising has been around for a long time without all this creepy tracking. I recently switched car insurance due to a targeted advertisement. It was a billboard on a subway platform. Tracking has also been around for a long time without the creepy stalker stuff. Whenever you redeem a coupon, you're giving companies feedback on whether or not the ad the coupon is attached to is reaching the intended audience. And tracking individuals to get a clearer picture has been around for a long time without the violation of consent. Nielsen families know all about that. What I think is problematic is the individualization. Signaling is an important part of advertisements. With an oldschool advertisement I get some extra information indicating that the company is legitimate and in good shape. Oldschool ads are expensive, so companies that place them are sending a clear message that they can afford them, and that they have enough faith in their product to think it will pay off. Individualization, by contrast, makes it impossible for me to distinguish between a big robust ad campaign and some fly-by-night company singling me out in an effort to sell the equivalent of crap from Skymall. And it does too much to enable parasitic advertising, where a company that wants to sell to people who read Harper's can avoid paying for ads on Harper's because they can instead follow those people to less-glamorous places and advertise to them there.