Mostly people don't know, and literally can't imagine, how much data there is about them. I accidentally freaked out a friend when they posted a photo on FB and challenged their friends to guess where it was taken, by responding 30 minutes later with a link to the Google street view photo of the same spot.

That said: The personalisation of the adverts is, at least in my case, pretty terrible — FB and Twitter categorised me as being interested in sports I've never watched, languages I've not learned, and politics of countries I've never lived in.

As someone else replied to me here, it's good that they're bad, because bad ads are easier to ignore.

> The personalisation of the adverts is, at least in my case, pretty terrible — FB and Twitter categorised me as being interested in sports I've never watched, languages I've not learned, and politics of countries I've never lived in.

Part of the reason for the push for opaquely-personalised ads could also be because advertising platforms can effectively defraud their advertisers by serving their ads to people who have no interest in them, which would be impossible in a world where people explicitly choose which types/categories of ads they're interested in.

>advertising platforms can effectively defraud their advertisers by serving their ads to people who have no interest in them

Why would a platform ever do this intentionally? This will just result in lower CPM and advertisers pulling out.

>which would be impossible in a world where people explicitly choose which types/categories of ads they're interested in.

It's possible. You can still make an ad model to give people the worst ads and ignore their preferences.

If people don't care, then why is legislation being passed? There is little monetary benefit to a government to unilaterally enact this kind of legislation without public support or legitimate concern for public safety.

Privacy and data mining by corporations is a huge topic of discussion these days. Because the conversation doesn't enter your bubble, it doesn't mean it's not happening. You should look around more, find some diverse news outlets and actually get a sense of public opinion before making claims about it.

>If people don't care, then why is legislation being passed?

Because there is a vocal minority who does care and the media makes the collection of data sound scarier than it really is.

>There is little monetary benefit to a government to unilaterally enact this kind of legislation

Except for all of the fines that you can collect under it?

>get a sense of public opinion before making claims about it.

I have and most people do not care until you start using loaded words that make people think people are actually spying on them and people who can look at their data when in actuality their data is drop in a pond and it is only processed by computers and is never looked at by another human.

> Have you considered that it isn't being solved because consumers don't actually mind the extra tracking?

This is an interesting hypothesis, but there's no evidence for it.

Here's how we can test it: enact regulation requiring companies to disclose what personal information they collect, how they use it, and what third parties they disclose it to, and put that information in an equally prominent place as the price (e.g. "$10/month plus we collect your name, phone number, email address, and mailing address and sell it to 16 third-parties[link to list] for advertising purposes).

Then we'll see how many people are willing to pay for services with their data.

> consumers don't actually mind the extra tracking?

Consumers can opt in to the tracking.

When Apple required opt-in, 10% opted in, 90% opted out.