There was targeted advertising in the 90’s. A lot of it uses direct mail, and profiled consumers based upon their magazine subscriptions. But other things like grocery store loyalty cards and the like were used back then, too. Television, radio, and print advertising was and is targeted by demographic.
Literally the entire purpose of the magazine industry is targeted advertising. The only reason to publish something like Cosmo or Hustler is to sell adds targeting the types of people who read Cosmo or Hustler.
Advertising has always been discriminatory. Even in the 90s there were multiple billboards, newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations in the world. Advertisers select what, when and where to advertise based on who they think is listening.
The only thing that has changed is how much we know about the "listener" (or page viewer). The nature of advertising is no different today than it was 100 years ago, only the resolution changed.
I don't see how you could even have ads that aren't discriminatory if "proxy characteristics that correlate with age or gender" is enough to be discriminatory? If you put an ad next to a barbershop, then that ad is targeting men through "proxy characteristics that correlate with gender", because it's next to a service that men are much more likely to visit. Is that illegal discrimination too? Are there officials that somehow calculate the locations where you are allowed to put advertising so that it wouldn't discriminate (close enough to shops that both men and women visit)?
That's why, among other things, Facebook made "a tool so you can search for and view all current housing ads in the US targeted to different places across the country, regardless of whether the ads are shown to you." https://about.fb.com/news/2019/03/protecting-against-discrim... So advertisers can target you, but they can't keep you from seeing an ad if you go looking for it.
If this tool exists and allows ads to be viewed with the same visibility as their normal targeting then why are they bothering with targeted ads anymore?
I believe the idea is that while the tool gives you an interface to find those ads, it doesn't replace the ads that you see during usage of the rest of Facebook.
So you're preferring the form of manipulation that works best on you?
I'd prefer not to be manipulated at all.
In fact I loathe the feeling of being manipulated so much that it extends to all but the least obnoxious brands that try to advertise to me.
I can't be the only one who is allergic to advertising that tries to appropriate things from my social groups or background to sell me their shitty mobile data plan, insurance, or phone.
The most recent example is some random phone company trying to sell me their data plan with some shitty pun on "cum laude" on posters at university. Ugh.
Yes. Rather than being peppered with ads for credit repair services, obscure/irrelevant drugs, or other things that I’m not interested in and therefore waste 100% of my time, I’d rather be marketed to about products/services I’d consider buying (or ads that will entertain me).
You can whitelist what they can target, I mean if you really care about marketers, you can allow site owners to generate 'tags' ad networks can use for that specific page and the content of the tags can depend on the prefernces of the user on that specific site.