People not only were OK when Obama campaign used social networking data - they actively cheered it, including on HN and tech press, as a new and smart way to re

People not only were OK when Obama campaign used social networking data - they actively cheered it, including on HN and tech press, as a new and smart way to reach people. I remember reading a number of articles lauding them for it myself. Now a mundane activity of getting access to searchable public data is presented as some dark conspiracy. I personally can't see any logic why political ads would be different than coffee machine ads - both try to convince me to do something. It's just there's no organized movement united by hate of coffee machines, so nobody makes a fuss about coffee machine ads.