I don't think all ads are bad- advertisement, at its basic core is letting people know about a product or service that you provide. This can be informative, edu

I don't think all ads are bad- advertisement, at its basic core is letting people know about a product or service that you provide. This can be informative, educational, and even entertaining. What IS bad, especially with respect to the 'net is the sheer volume, hostility, low quality, and threat to our safety that our current methods of advertising (ab)use. Why should an article on WSJ be megabytes of download? Why is every action I perform with default settings on public sites being tracked with an efficiency and persistence governments could only dream of? Why can't I opt out globally? Because of the hostility of the environment I think it is acceptable, fair, even responsible to do everything in our power to regain control of our identity and information. The part everyone needs to figure out is, how can I find out about quality products and services in a way that is meaningful and safe. Maybe it is simply to do everything we can to make ads distasteful and rely on word of mouth and hunting for things when we need them, but there's probably a balance in there somewhere.