I didn’t get the sense that he/she was gloating. Just citing their expertise.

Whenever someone claims expertise in a way that is so vague and unverifiable that basically anyone could have made the claim, really, it is not a citation and not a sign of expertise. But it is very sketchy.

In a completely different matter, I worked on high level space programs in the late 1970s and if you had any idea about the information that the government is hiding on extraterrestrial life TO THIS DAY, your hair would stand.

Ads themselves might be fine to you (I disagree). Breaking privacy laws, spying on users, and dark patterns to trick user into "consent" is not.

Alas, the modern ad industry

And one need have the other so I can't imagine what exactly it is you're talking about in the context of a reply to the statement "Ads are fine."

Ads targeted based on the content they are placed next to don't need to track anybody. While they might be annoying (i.e. take up space / time) they don't have any privacy concerns.

> they don't have any privacy concerns

Depending on how they're served to the end user.

>Ads are fine

You work for Google; of course you find them fine.

This comment adds little more than name calling. Can ads be annoying? Yes. So is paying money for the things you enjoy. Very few online businesses have been able to find a business model that does not amount to selling ads or selling links. Some people find ads more intrusive than others but personally I find paywalls to be much more of a nuisance than seeing a banner ad. If free as in beer comes at the cost of hearing a sales pitch then I am personally fine with that.

Ads aren't just annoying, they're often malicious and downright dangerous. Linking to apps with 0 click subscriptions, illegal porn or with recurring card payments and banking trojans. God forbid you're in the crypto space, every fucking ad is a scam or malicious, people lose their whole life savings to scams pushed through Google ads every day and there is no easy way to stop them. I run an ad blocker because Google is useless at stopping illegal scams and has been for a very long time. Google should have a policy to ban any crypto services name from adwords unless the ad is from verified from the service the word is about. It's not rocket science, but it'd hit the bottom line so until then eat adblock.

I've been a victim of google's vastly inadequate ad vetting on at least three occasions and I'm pretty savvy.

That's a lot of words, and I'm sure the pain you feel and need for Google to maintain a registry of crypto ads you find acceptable is real. But, an excuse is an excuse.

I don't think that follows