This article is full of basic self-contradictions. The very first sentence: It’s difficult to conceive of the internet we know today —with information on

This article is full of basic self-contradictions. The very first sentence: It’s difficult to conceive of the internet we know today —with information on every topic, in every language, at the fingertips of billions of people — without advertising as its economic foundation. He literally describes Wikipedia, which is not based on advertising as its economic foundation. Immediately after that, he says: 72% of people feel that almost all of what they do online is being tracked by advertisers, technology firms or other companies, and 81% say that the potential risks they face because of data collection outweigh the benefits If that's true, then we are already far past the point where everyone just expects intrusive spying to be a normal part of web use. If that feeling were going to disrupt the advertising business, then it would already have done so. Therefore, his next comment is categorically false (though I wish it were true): If digital advertising doesn't evolve to address the growing concerns people have about their privacy and how their personal identity is being used, we risk the future of the free and open web. I think another comment here by user samschooler nails it - Google wants to block intrusions by its competitors under the guise of protecting privacy, while opening up new doors to tracking that only it can take advantage of. The right way to respect user privacy in advertising is much simpler: just use what they voluntarily gave you (i.e., the words in their search terms) to present relevant advertisements. That may not provide as great of a "benefit of relevant advertising", as he puts it, but that's fine with me.