Levelheaded and well-written. I personally am vehemently against all forms of tracking/targeted ads not due to ad preferences, but due to concerns over how much

Levelheaded and well-written. I personally am vehemently against all forms of tracking/targeted ads not due to ad preferences, but due to concerns over how much data is being collected and how little control we have over it. I too would prefer non-spammy targeted ads to 'dumb' ads - given that the data being collected and stored is used solely for this purpose. But that's never the case. Targeted advertising at first glance seems like a win-win-win: you're exposed to products aligned with your interests, the manufacturer makes a sale, Google takes a small cut. Thing is, the advertising giant's 'win' carries significantly more weight than yours or the manufacturer's: You get your product, you're pleased with it. Win! The manufacturer makes a sale. Win! The ad/tracking agency receives a juicy set of click/keystroke/impression/conversion data. They ingest it into their massive database and it's matched with a wealth of other information already collected on you. This is all combined and fed through a state-of-the-art machine learning system. This third party now has a full psychological profile of your interests, hobbies, lifestyle, connections, etc. They can use it to serve you better-targeted ads. Win! Or they can use it to influence you politically. Or they could sell it to the NSA. Or they could be hacked by a foreign nation state. Targeted advertising is one thing. Blanket surveillance + dragnet data collection + Google ML + PRISM is quite another.