On the awful, awful practice of using data for ad targeting

(sung) I'm Against It...

I read a study recently where, news of news, it was discussed that respondents didn't want to share their data in regards to the ads they see. (Here it is, in case you want to see the shocking news for yourself.)

Good thing you were sitting down for that, right?

Rather than point out all of the things that advertising does for the Internet -- i.e., more or less pay for highly attractive and useful chunks of it -- I thought I'd just add this small fact to the list of things that people don't like.

> Getting ads that are not relevant to their interests

> Getting ads that are targeted from their personal data

> Paying for content or apps

> Having content sites with ad formats that might get noticed / i.e., paid for

> Getting older

> Getting fatter

> Having to prepare food before eating it

> Having to clean up, rather than having someone else do it for them

> Spending money, perhaps on people that prepare or clean up after food preparation

Anyway, you get the point. And while I really don't want to come off as a cranky realist or apologist to overly aggressive forms of advertising, the plain and simple fact is that without a reasonable revenue stream, quality in content has only one direction to go. Take a look at all of the solid blogs in every consumer category that are no longer with us. Or how online newspaper sites are continually pivoting from free to paywall access, and also shedding staff. I get that this is a generation raised on the wisdom of crowds and the opinions of their friends, but that doesn't fund quality journalism, new music, books, etc... at least, any of those that don't exist in protected and proprietary distribution methods.

But to all of those who believe that the laws of marketing physics do not apply because the new tech is just so very very different from the old tech... well, do you enjoy getting untargeted ads?

And maybe a very large number of them, since they don't work as well as as the targeted ones?

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