Re:Protections Against Fingerprinting and Crypto Mining in F...
by ogre_codes on Tuesday April 09, 2019 @07:01PM
(#19619848)
Yes, fully agree. Not all advertisers are bad. Not all advertising is bad. But the idea that targeted advertising is inherently better is bullshit and potentially far worse. I know you are not suggesting that either, just clarifying my above comment.
On average yes. Just as there is a gradient in non-targeted advertising of 'basically benign' to 'scum of the earth', I think there is a gradient in targeted advertising too.
On the basically benign end of the gradient you have the "You recently bought book X from author Y, perhaps you'd be interested in Book Z from author Y." (I don't like that stuff, I still block it, but it doesn't quite get me incensed if you know what I mean.) But the potential for harm from targetted ads can be truly extreme.