Well, relevance doesn't actually matter to me. Actually, if I'm to see ads, I find it less objectionable if they aren't relevant to me personally because releva

Well, relevance doesn't actually matter to me. Actually, if I'm to see ads, I find it less objectionable if they aren't relevant to me personally because relevance indicates that someone is spying on me. Regulation is desperately needed, but I seriously doubt that anything meaningful will happen in the foreseeable future in my part of the US. Nothing has happened yet, anyway, despite lots of talk about it. I mean, who knows? It's possible. However, I don't expect it. The benefits to consumers part is true, but it needs to be opt in (as you mentioned). I have no issue with tracking people who have given informed consent to be tracked. But again, I have no expectation that's actually going to happen. I put a fair bit of effort to avoid being tracked, but advertisers put even more effort into subverting my wishes. I should be able to have them leave me alone. I find the three points in your list of technical foundations to offer some improvement, but they aren't anything like a solution. They're more like reducing the bleeding. All of them would still be unacceptable (to me) in the absence of my informed consent. > What safeguards would you want to see? To me, the underlying point is that unless I've consented to having information about me, my machines, or my use of my machines tracked, I'm being spied on and object to it strongly. It's hard for me to think of what technological safeguards would help here. I can think of legislative ones, though. For example, DNT could have gone a long way if it weren't voluntary.