Because advertisers are bad faith actors and what I do on the internet is none of their business. I have depression. Last night I did 60m of scientific researc

Because advertisers are bad faith actors and what I do on the internet is none of their business. I have depression. Last night I did 60m of scientific research on ways to improve it, including new advancements in psychedelic treatments. I closed my laptop, went to bed, and opened my phone for some late night reading (yes, bad habit). Practically any site I visited spammed me with ads for SAFE AND CHEAP 100% GUARANTEED MEDICALLY SUPERVISED KETAMINE INJECTIONS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ads are bad because: (1) It felt disgusting to know advertisers were spying on me when I was trying to get better. (2) Advertisers have no incentive to show me an ad for a safe or appropriate product — just one that I will click on. They are in the business of exploiting my psyche for profit. (3) Advertisers build profiles and resell them in the long term. Somewhere, there is a DB linking my IP with my identity, and now they’ve added the fact that I have mental health issues to that profile. Because of the lack of regulations in the US, I have no way of making sure that data doesn’t fall into the wrong hands (such as insurance companies, recruitment agencies, hackers, or just asshole ad agency employees who don’t care about PII).