> The issue is not advertising, the issue is the construction, classification and use of human profiles through the collection of behavioral data, by-and-large without the subjects being aware or cognizant of the possible short and long-term implications.
I don't disagree that collection of data isn't bad, but two things:
1. The collection of data isn't the goal, the advertising is. The data is only practically valuable to do advertising better (and of course for surveillance, but I suspect the market for data for surveillance is orders of magnitude smaller). If you kill the advertising, you kill the need for data. If you kill the data, the advertisers will just find other ways to make their advertising convert better.
2. We should all be outraged at the idea of corporations using psychological tricks to influence our behavior. The human mind was not pentested before shipping to production. Some ads just remind you that a product exists, but many try to create positive associations to make the product more appealing or to make you think of it later.
We just let this happen and don't care. Mostly because we don't really notice it working. You don't think "oh yeah, I'll buy the name brand paper towels because I saw that commercial", you just buy them because they're the ones that your brain has an association with cleaning up the whole dribble of blue liquid. Of course you'll buy the one that works. Our brains are unpatched Linux kernels and advertisers are botnets.
Like, be outraged at the data mining and selling. But be more outraged at why it's happening.