A less unrealistic solution that is about as effective at addressing the privacy issues without making advertising worthless would be to ban targeting based on stored personal data of the visitor. Targeting based on what can be inferred from the current site visit would be allowed.

So, for example, if someone is doing a Google search for art museums in Los Angeles they could be targeted with ads related to art and ads related to Los Angeles. Interests in art and Los Angeles can be inferred from that Google visit, so would be fair game.

If the next day they Google search for refrigerators they could not be shown targeted ads related to art because no connection to art can be inferred from the current visit.

Fair enough. I'd even go so far as to allow targeting based on information entered voluntarily on THAT site, such as if I give facebook my gender and age AND say explicitly that those 2 data points are fair to use for targeting - then they can use it (But that data can't leave the site - meaning they can't include adnet.com/ad?age=$age.

> Obviously this would destroy most "free" online services over night

Why would it? TV and radio advertising is not individually targeted, and still exists.

TV and radio advertising is targeted by region - even by city in some cases.

Banning any and all targeting online would result for example everyone in America seeing advertising only intended for people in London.

Essentially resulting in online advertising being rendered useless.

The article explains specifically that it's referring to advertising targeted on an individual basis, not targeted by location or context. The issue is that using personal information to present adverts is damaging to privacy. Non-individual targeting (what page the advert is on, or where the page request is coming from) is not a personal privacy concern.

except the digital, you're complaining about is also non-individual, and it's anonymized at a much higher threshold. radio points are demographics based buys, TV is demographics based...niche mags etc., same story.

The audience for non-individual web ads is not the entirety of Internet users. For instance, when I make a search on DuckDuckGo my geographic location (although this is optional) and search terms provide a demographic that is useful for specific advertising, without personally identifying or tracking me. Similarly, an online newspaper can include ads appropriate to the story viewed, and the geographic location of the user, without need for tracking.

Facebook and Google (and nearly every other social ads platform that evolved along the same playbook) avoid the 'personal'by aggregating users above certain thresholds. It's fairly precise, and often the only times I can spot an individual is if they're flagging something geographic or contextual (e.g., search) that is unique. (for example, I know when my parents visit my blog because I know their network hostname and location.)

when you say, begin to search for trips to disney and start looking through photos on Facebook, it isn't that an advertiser discovers you, gnode, are looking for a disney trip, it's that the platform adds you to an audience of people interested in disney and to an audience of people who are interested in travel. advertisers engage with those audiences, platforms hold the data.

TV advertising is very very targeted. If you don't think so, spend ten minutes each on commercials from Disney channel, the Food Network, ESPN, and CNBC. You will see very very different ads on each.

This is why I said "individually targeted". The TV advertiser doesn't know your name, age, gender, search history, etc.

Right. But they do know what program you are watching (which might be a demographic clue) and they do know a rough geographic area.

If facebook couldn't show chinese products to chinese visitors, they'd have a hard time selling ads. They'd be worse off than a tv station in that case.

Disregarding the fact that Facebook is blocked by the Great Firewall, and virtually unused in China, serving internet ads on a national or township basis is easy to do with IP address based selection. This can be done without tracking users (recording information about them) or otherwise impacting their privacy. It isn't necessary to build a database tying individual identities to nationalities or addresses, to geographically target ads.

That's different. They're selling ads on a channel. Targeted advertising is selling ads for a person.

> Obviously this would destroy most "free" online services over night - but I'm completely fine with that.

How old are you?

I'm a 90's kid, people my ages discovered the potential to learn over the internet at a pretty young age because of access to free learning material paid by ads. I still remember reading about PHP over Le Site Du Zéro (now called OpenClassrooms).You know the most amazing, Mathieu Nebra the founder, made a living out of my views. He was able to come from nothing and profit from my learning as a small kid unable to afford this kind of resource (believe me, I tried).

Now that I'm way past the age of majority, I have no trouble paying 20$ over udemy or any other online resource, but that 10 years old that I was... well he couldn't and that's a pretty big issue.

That's a pretty big loss for a non-issue. Every issues he mentions still exist without targeted ads. People already forgotten Hitler didn't needed Facebook to fulfill his genocide.

I’m 40 - and to be clear I wouldn’t mind the type of advertising that existed on the “young” web - I don’t mind ads, I just don’t like the industry it created. I do believe it’s possible to turn back the clock on online ads. The future where there are no ads and no ad-funded services isn’t optimal, but it’s better than what we have.