> in 90s there were tons of commercials on TV that said Mesothelioma is a cancer These were not targeted. The reality of the modern economy is that if your ad

> in 90s there were tons of commercials on TV that said Mesothelioma is a cancer These were not targeted. The reality of the modern economy is that if your ad profile says "suggest <major disease> ads", you can be sure data brokers will share that with lots of organizations with various agendas. I haven't had a chance to review Google's categories, but Meta has fairly narrow categories which could be easily exploited, for instance[1] -- although of course Meta have tried to walk some of that back[2]. And of course even if Google starts out with very innocuous categories, these can always become more fine-grained later. And there are ways to enrich even very innocuous categories using signals from other sources. [1] https://www.everywheremarketer.com/blog/how-to-use-detailed-targeting-on-facebook https://www.everywheremarketer.com/blog/how-to-use-detailed-... [2] https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/meta-to-prevent-ad-targeting-based-on-sensitive-information/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/meta-to-preven...