This is a great, great point. Ads themselves aren't necessarily scummy or manipulative. I can't even think of the number of restaurants I've found through their

This is a great, great point. Ads themselves aren't necessarily scummy or manipulative. I can't even think of the number of restaurants I've found through their ads, products I've ended up buying through ads, or services I learned about through advertising. Which is sort of the point -- I have interests and some money to spend, and ads tell me of new people (or familiar people with new products/foods) to spend it on. Specialized magazines (hobbyist, regional, etc) seem to hit the absolute right balance for this. People advertising in them know who they're advertising to, in general, and people picking them up know what they're getting; some interesting content (hopefully) and some ads relevant to their hobby/region. Online ads have gone way, way, wayyyyy too far in getting into the scummy hyper-profiling, and they're not even selling stuff I'm then interested in! So what's the point? I mean, in practical terms the point is to try and differentiate their profiles of me from other people's profiles of me -- marketing techniques applied to the business of marketing -- but in real terms, who (aside from the companies building these profiles) benefits? I'm personally holding out hope that the US will adopt a "you own your data and can determine its uses" legal framework, and bring the hammer down on anyone amassing profiles on the populace. Google, Equifax, Facebook, the million anonymous marketing and list-selling firms, all that stuff needs to come under heavy regulation.