[zxcdw]

I do agree with you, though as a brief tangent (as if this horse wasn't beat badly enough here in HN during the past almost 30 months...), my personal concern is both political and ethical, and I suspect this same concern applies to many of us who see dragnet surveillance as a problem.

The political aspect is that whatever data there is about an individual can be used against them, selectively, for say political purposes. This is a gross violation of transparency and the principles of a democratic society.

The ethical aspect is that I am being spied upon because of what I am not -- because I am not a US citizen. The talk about whether US constitution protects US citizens from dragnet mass surveillance (and thus whether NSA spying is unconstitutional) outright disgusts me (although I do understand the relevance for US citizens, of course). Telling one to "not use US internet services" is like telling one to opt out from the Internet. It's a "tough cookies" argument with very limited practical applicability.

Collecting information about me to make money out of me by selling me stuff? Honestly, in comparison, that doesn't feel that bad at all. Luckily, browser add-ons like Ghostery and various adblockers mitigate this to an extent.

[surferbayarea]

Ideally the ad exchange should be an independent and open system like the stock exchange. A user's private information should be carefully federated and controlled access given to various advertisers. This exchange should not be controlled by Google, but should be an open system. Just like you can buy shares for a business, you should be able to buy advertising rights to a user(or set of users). The money paid by advertisers should flow to the user.