> Google, for instance, used to show you ads based only on your search keywords.

This is still true. You basically never see personalized ads on search, since getting a contextual ad for cruises when searching for programming answers probably isn't going to end up with many clicks. Instead, it's only really 'Google Ads' (AdSense on other websites) and YouTube where personalized ads result in higher CPMs.

(Although Google does indeed use your search history for ad targeting.)

> (Although Google does indeed use your search history for ad targeting.)

Yes, and it's not the advertising part that is evil. It's the part where they spy on every aspect of your life because doing so makes ad sales more profitable.

Point of order: their inline-ad-placement on search results is evil. It exists to trick the unwary, including vulnerable people like the elderly, sometimes into landing on scams, thinking they're legitimate because Google presented them as top-level search results.

> Point of order: their inline-ad-placement on search results is evil.

I don't think that is necessarily evil, but it certainly is embarrassing for Google since Google used to make fun of competing search engines for that exact behavior back when Google was still the underdog.

Spying on everyone's credit/debit card transaction data, on the other hand, is definitely evil.

> as Google said in a blog post on its new service for marketers, it has partnered with “third parties” that give them access to 70 percent of all credit and debit card purchases

https://adwords.googleblog.com/2017/05/powering-ads-and-anal...

Adsense does do personalized ads. Search for “gym” and it will show location based ads.

Location-based isn't personalized.

Personalized is "we're showing you ads for local gyms because we noticed that you've been watching a lot of Youtube videos about workout routines". Or whatever.

I would argue those are two levels of personalization, actually. What makes you think where you are isn't a part of catering to you specifically?

If I see ads posted in the wall on a subway in Manhattan, that they are talking about restaurants nearby and not in San Francisco does not cross the threshold of 'personalized advertisement'.

If a digital panel switched to show me restaurants in San Francisco because they detected that I travel there a lot, that is absolutely personalized.

Similarly, if a maps service shows me restaurants near my destination that have paid for placement, thats not personalized. If they show me fast food restaurants on my route because I got directions to one previously, that is personalized.

It is a moot point because Apple isn't anti-advertising _nor_ anti-personalization. They are pro-privacy. Like Google, they will just move ad determination onto the device.

I'd argue that the difference is memory. When a service provider starts making decisions based on an individual user's history, rather than only using factors which they can infer on the spot, that's the point at which I'd call the behavior "personalization".