[pdkl95]

> Advertising in the nytimes over some other paper or advertising on fox over cnn are all examples of targeted advertising.

"Targeted" advertising generally refers to the tracking-based targeting of individual people. Re-defining the term to include all types of advertising makes the term mostly useless.

> Doesn't seem feasible.

Banning targeted advertising would be easy with legislation that bans tracking and showing ads to individuals.

> You'd have to make people randomly choose advertising spots from all of media.

Traditional advertising methods worked fine for centuries. Nobody[1] places ads randomly; you advertise where your product's audience will see it.

[1] Advertising intended to build general brand awareness instead of selling a specific product or service might buy ads somewhat randomly, because the goal is simply getting the brand name seen widely and often.

[Letmesleep69]

Well I understood targeted advertising as advertising with a target in mind. So advertising on msnbc to target liberals and fox for conservatives. In terms of tracking people and using their data to precisely target them then I agree with Richard Stallmann's article here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/03/facebo...

[zrobotics]

That's too broad of a definition, it effectively reduces the term 'targeted advertising' to just 'advertising'. For example, even if my advertisement isn't trying to target broad categories of people (roadside billboard, etc) any ad will have a target in mind: consumers of my product.

So no, targeted advertising is not any ad with a target in mind, that is just advertising. Targeted ads are distinguished from regular ads based on targeting a specific individual. An ad in the WSJ may be aimed at a broad category of people interested in business news, but if I know for a fact that 'Letmesleep69' happens to be a reader of that paper and I take out an ad that specifically refers to that user name, then it would be a targeted ad.

edit: formatting

[18pfsmt]

I don't think the word 'targeted' has as narrow a definition as you are proposing (at least in the common vernacular). In writing laws, as in code, one has to be very specific and define things properly, but not in frank discussion.

Disclosure: I believe in the eventual success of the fediverse.

[amelius]

Yes. Perhaps "personalized advertising" would be a better term?