Advertising is not a bad thing in itself. Think of newspaper advertisements (paper edition). I think I owe a lot of my success to a newspaper ad I saw which led

Advertising is not a bad thing in itself. Think of newspaper advertisements (paper edition). I think I owe a lot of my success to a newspaper ad I saw which led me to apply to join for advanced math and science classes. We have had it for centuries, and there will always be some form of advertising around. A "ban" on advertising is neither practical nor fruitful. What is bad is specific, targeted advertising based on user behavior or deep knowlege about the user. This is somewhat vague, of course - if I buy a car magazine, I expect to see car ads which the publishers have posted because they know that the people who buy the magazine are car enthusiasts. It is a question of precision - I am ok with ads targeted at IPs from, say Queens area in New York, but not ads that use my precise location or street. Age should be completely out of bounds except for general statistics like - readers of this newspaper tend to be 20-30 year olds.