I must say that I agree both with you and the "conspiracy theorists". On the one hand, targeting ads at potential ISIS recruits is arguably benign compared to m

I must say that I agree both with you and the "conspiracy theorists". On the one hand, targeting ads at potential ISIS recruits is arguably benign compared to most advertising, as you say. On the other hand, the fact that a company such as Google potentially has such unprecedented influence on people's thoughts, at all (not necessarily in this specific case), is terrifying. I'm not entirely sure why Google's power appears so salient in this case, compared to the general case of online tracking and targeted ads, as well as control over search result ordering. I suspect it's because: a) supporting ISIS is a political position (if a crazy one), rather than just a product, so it makes it easier for people to extrapolate to influencing people with slightly more mainstream political opinions b) the article claims that the targeted ads are actually relatively effective in this case. I'm not implying that Google is currently abusing its power, and perhaps naively, I actually trust it to a non-zero extent, unlike, say Facebook, but there definitely is scope for abuse.