> If there was no targeting of any kind then half of the ads you'd see would be in languages you can't even understand.

Given I have zero interest in seeing ads in the first place, this sounds like a 'you' problem.

I'm not trying to be snarky here - this idea that relevant ads are important to users seems to be some sort of industry delusion. Why should I care if the people trying to sell me stuff while I read a news article are less able to target me? The ads are already an attention-demanding annoyance, it hardly matters what they're for.