Second author here. The paper is written for a social-science audience (I'm the CS person, hence ACM template), so it is written that way to help get non-exper

Second author here. The paper is written for a social-science audience (I'm the CS person, hence ACM template), so it is written that way to help get non-experts on board. Otherwise, there is ample research people don't understand how private browsing works, and there are plenty of ways to track people during privacy sessions. There are some very creative people working in adtech today and I don't doubt there are numerous methods that are being used to get around every single protection out there. I'd vastly prefer that creative energy be directed to socially beneficial ends, but I have respect for the technical chops of people in adtech. However, it is fundamentally depressing that so many smart people spend their lives shattering the bounds of decency to get an ad impression for some useless item that will go into a landfill in 18 months. Aside from privacy the biggest tragedy here is the waste of brainpower spent promoting mindless consumerism in a world rapidly moving towards climate catastrophe.