Just targeting you at that level by definition means invading your privacy to the extent you may not want, or want to control and can't. Just to name a few thin

Just targeting you at that level by definition means invading your privacy to the extent you may not want, or want to control and can't. Just to name a few things: 3rd party cookies, whatever data is mine-able from your profiles, your interactions, your use of the social network platform itself, on mobile, your email, your searches, information from your interaction graph, not to mention everything you might do in real life that ends up online in some way.. All of this to serve better ads is at the cost of your privacy, everyone's privacy. You can actually find things you might be interested in just fine by searching for them instead of seeing some ad twice that you might be interested in. Serving better ads requires more data on consumers and once the treadmill starts, there is no getting off unless as a consumer you decide to take back control. This is why ad-blockers are as big as they are. This isn't some externality either, what happened in the election is the externality. To the extent that Facebook interactions fed and influenced the election, it was because better ad targeting; and more consumer time on the site, which helps better ad targeting is the business model. So, I agree with the article very much.