I agree that it mitigates the problem, but it does not seem to solve the root cause of it. Aren't ads and ad targeting the main reason why companies want to sto

I agree that it mitigates the problem, but it does not seem to solve the root cause of it. Aren't ads and ad targeting the main reason why companies want to store and sell that data? Other uses of user data is considered a lot shadier and respectful companies will not engage in them. If we start considering ad targeting to be a shady business practice, we may actually end the incentives for big conglomerates to want to store user data in the first place and thus end up with a system where user profiles are the exception rather than the norm. In a less techinical point of view, ads are probably a net negative for society. People are buying things they don't need, spending time they could be doing other things and just having a worse experience they could have were not for content farms and other practices incentivised by ads. I do see the value of ads bringing services to people who wouldn't have money to pay for them otherwise, it's income distributions of sorts, but I think we can do better. Anyway, interesting read about ip blindness. As long as the CDNs and proxies are not controlled by the same company that owns the ad networks, then it could work out. Though it's hard to find the correct incentives for the right people to own the right parts of the network. Another alternative would be something like onion, which is more distributed (although quite wasteful of resources).