[marichards]

You can have targeted ads and be anonymous to the ad companies.

Ads can be targeted to context, not user - web developer ads on JavaScript blogs.

Ad profiling and targeting can be done client side.

Users' could opt in to what they are targeted for to ensure it is the relevance they want. You will often find ad tracking technology on some very privacy invasive websites. I've seen it on HIV support, rape support, prayer, single parent dating, cancer advice, alcoholism, political party membership pages and many more; even tracking military intelligence recruitment. Are the relevant ads and infosec risks for these topics good for the user?

Tackling anonymised delivery and fraud prevention is a problem, but it's something that can be overcome with accepting it already happens and then minimising it through privacy respective methods like using auditors and testing, copying anonymisation protocols (maybe Tor), payment style validation (Brave?, zerocoin) and server side metrics.

[wruza]

> Users' could opt in to what they are targeted for to ensure it is the relevance they want

So much this. I would turn my adblock off, if I had a directory with checkboxes/weights against interesting product topics. I would even browse the topics themselves regularly, as I did in google directory before it was gone. I (and the economy) want me to discover, not to hide from pushiest pushers around.

Modern marketing is just a slowpoke idiot who stalks me for two weeks after I already bought a <productname> via search.

[bertil]

For what it’s worth: it’s the same here and I only allow ads from Google and Facebook.

Google’s system isn’t perfect but I can x-out individual ads. I’m hoping that Google will move away from a purely embedding-based targeting system into something more deliberate.

Facebook has [1] which is the closest to what you are asking for, although not used nearly enough to justify more investment in improving it.

[1] https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences/