> We are not talking about banning books, websites, music, advertisements Regulating micro targeting implies restricting what people can advertise to specific

> We are not talking about banning books, websites, music, advertisements Regulating micro targeting implies restricting what people can advertise to specific people. If you restrict people’s ability to advertise knowledge of something’s existence you’re effectively banning it without making it illegal to access. Your notion of “bombardment” is legitimate, but I think should apply after initial contact. If a user doesn’t want certain advertisers to send them certain information, users should be able to decide what they do and don’t want to mute, but they can’t know what they do and don’t want until someone reaches out. The primary point of advertising is to introduce a user to something they might want to either have or know about but were not previously aware of. At least that’s the point I find most legitimate. That means giving users information they didn’t specifically ask for. The type of behavior modification that’s more contentious is not about presenting a user with something they didn’t know about, it’s usually about reinforcing something they already wanted. If you ban information you think users don’t want or that shouldn’t be advertised to them, you’re reducing the discovery aspect of advertising. A user can’t know if they want to have certain ads or information presented until they have it presented at least once. Preventing initial contact and trying to get a product or idea to someone you think would be receptive but isn’f aware of seems to me like it’s not preventing either bombardment or behavioral modification, and would probably lead to people being even more siloed than they already are. If the DoD has the power to steer how people are siloed, that seems even worse. I agree that the behavioral modification capabilities and scale of surveillance is extremely worrisome and there should be things done to mitigate it, I just don’t see how a lot of what I’m hearing in documents like this would make it any better. The impulse seems to create something top down which would harm discovery. I wouldn’t have a problem with regulations that force companies to provide more access to the knobs of what gets them or what advertising networks they want to be a part of, for example. But I don’t see a lot of evidence that’s the direction things are going.