Yeah our societies functioned for centuries without targeted ads, and we can do it again. It's only the past decade or two that we've had targeted ads. I think you could compare targeted ads to selling drugs: there's clearly a market for it and it will sustain many peoples' livelihoods, but as a society we've seen the ill effects of letting them run rampant and decided we're better off highly regulating them. It's time to reign in this massively detrimental business model. The businesses will adapt just fine.
We've had targeting for at least as long as we've had publications with different subscriber bases. Do you think there are the same ads in Wired magazine, Sports Illustrated, and the Wall Street Journal?
And even just traditional local newspapers targeted based on locale and readership. The New York Post is going to have different advertising than The New York Times.
When people say "targeted ads" these days, that's not what they're talking about. Perhaps it's a poor term. "Targeted ads" means ads that are targeted to a specific user, as opposed to a publication.
Yes, the tools are different and (very much in theory) more precisely targeted. But, at the end of the day, you're still mostly targeting populations based on their propensity to spend money with you. So you now target me with sports gear ads not just because I subscribe to Sports Illustrated but because I've bought sports gear and I'm in the Male 18-25 demographic.
I agree that attempts to target at an individual level feels different than just targeting a magazine's subscription base, but it's still targeting. So if someone wants to ban "targeting" they need to be more precise about what they're proposing to ban.
let me make a point about why i see one type of targeting as benign and the other (which i suppose could be called 'collaborative targeted marketing', because it involves sharing or aggregating data from multiple sources) as dangerous.
if i subscribe to a magazine about fishing and it includes an advertisement about some new fishing lure, well... it's obvious why the fishing magazine might think i'm into fishing.
but if i just bought a pack of diapers at walmart and then start seeing mailers for baby monitors from jc penny, that's when i start to get nervous.
my fear is of a world where i call up a health insurance provider, ask for a quote, and they say "according to facebook market research, your hobbies include BASE jumping based on the videos you watch on youtube. therefore your premium rate will be [$xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.00].".
All readers of these print publications are seeing the same ads. I think what most people mean with targeted advertising is when every reader sees a different ad based on extensive data collection.