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> It is not in an individual's best interest to have personal, private or even possibly harmful information warehoused at different advertising entities. Large

> It is not in an individual's best interest to have personal, private or even possibly harmful information warehoused at different advertising entities. Largely depends on who you are, I think. I’m not opposed to sharing any of my information with other ad companies

kbenson 8y ago
And that's your right. But I think you might also be underestimating what "your information" might be. What if it's a disease you just discovered you have, and you don't necessarily have all the information yet? Should you be targeted before you've had time to look into it, much less come to terms with it? What if you have a child with health problems or are part of a pregnancy that has problems? Would you want companies that might take advantage of the situation to be able to target you? What if you've just been turned down for a job? Should a for-profit college with poor qualities be able to target you right afterwards? There are many times when we find ourselves in an altered state of mind (even if slightly) where we are more susceptible to our baser emotions. Do we really need to engineer a system so companies can better identify when we are in these states for their benefit and to our detriment? It's fine if someone wants to knowingly trade their information away for some benefit, but they should be able to see what they are trading away and make an informed assessment. What we have now doesn't really allow for that, and once it's out there, it generally has little to no value later (once you're marked as an ex-con, good luck getting that our of everyone's data sets).
- echevil 8y ago
  In all of the three examples you gave, I don't see slightest problem of being targeted with those ads. Getting those ads don't mean I act on it in any way. With or without leaked personal information, I get tons of ads whatsoever, and almost 100% of them goes straight to trash. If the ad is interesting and relevant enough (which is very rare), the next action would be researching the product online, and very occasionally I'd be super happy to know about it. It sounds absurd if anybody would make important decisions like deciding what treatment to get for health problems based on what people say in ads without doing proper research and consulting doctors.

kbenson 8y ago

And that's your right. But I think you might also be underestimating what "your information" might be. What if it's a disease you just discovered you have, and you don't necessarily have all the information yet? Should you be targeted before you've had time to look into it, much less come to terms with it? What if you have a child with health problems or are part of a pregnancy that has problems? Would you want companies that might take advantage of the situation to be able to target you? What if you've just been turned down for a job? Should a for-profit college with poor qualities be able to target you right afterwards? There are many times when we find ourselves in an altered state of mind (even if slightly) where we are more susceptible to our baser emotions. Do we really need to engineer a system so companies can better identify when we are in these states for their benefit and to our detriment? It's fine if someone wants to knowingly trade their information away for some benefit, but they should be able to see what they are trading away and make an informed assessment. What we have now doesn't really allow for that, and once it's out there, it generally has little to no value later (once you're marked as an ex-con, good luck getting that our of everyone's data sets).

echevil 8y ago
In all of the three examples you gave, I don't see slightest problem of being targeted with those ads. Getting those ads don't mean I act on it in any way. With or without leaked personal information, I get tons of ads whatsoever, and almost 100% of them goes straight to trash. If the ad is interesting and relevant enough (which is very rare), the next action would be researching the product online, and very occasionally I'd be super happy to know about it. It sounds absurd if anybody would make important decisions like deciding what treatment to get for health problems based on what people say in ads without doing proper research and consulting doctors.