[Nextgrid]

Targeted advertising creates a liability for me in the form of leaking which services I use to a third-party advertising partner I may have no relationship with and haven't accepted their privacy policy (the service itself doesn't know whether I use Google/Facebook and sends them the information regardless).

If advertising was targeted at the browser level (the browser has access to the entire catalog of ads out there and then does the selection locally based on sites/services I interacted with previously) then I would be in favor of that.

Finally you are omitting a third option in your comparison: how about no advertising at all? Preferring paid services over ad-supported ones and countermeasures like uBlock Origin make that a real possibility. I can't recall the last time I've seen a proper ad online (in fact my problem with the parent's idea is more about the data sharing than the ads themselves since I won't see the ads anyway).

[icedchai]

If you feel it's a liability, it is up to you to protect yourself. Use VPNs, disposable VMs, multiple email accounts, private browsing, and whatever else you think is necessary to preserve your privacy. "Tracking" is baked in to the web. The cat is out of the bag.

No advertising isn't a viable option in this world. I'd go as far as to say that the Internet, as we know it today, would not exist without targeted ads.

[Nextgrid]

In this case you could say that we need to go back to the Middle Ages and we don't need laws & enforcement and if you are concerned about getting robbed or killed it's up to you to defend yourself by wearing body armor, carrying weapons and having your own personal army.

Society has laws for a reason when its constituents decide that certain behavior is detrimental to it and should be outlawed & discouraged by the use of appropriate punishment. I don't see why this shouldn't apply here? The GDPR is in fact a step in that direction, though its enforcement is severely lacking.

> No advertising isn't a viable option in this world.

This is debatable but it's a discussion for another thread.

> I'd go as far as to say that the Internet, as we know it today, would not exist without targeted ads.

The Internet originally was about sharing information freely. It facilitated commerce to a certain extent but commerce wasn't its core purpose. The internet as well have nowadays has actually become worse because of the increased focus on commerce & advertising.

[icedchai]

The difference is enforcement. GDPR cannot be enforced worldwide. Even if it "legally" can, which is debatable, practical enforcement is another matter. Even if it could be practically enforced, accidents happen. People make mistakes. Your data could still be shared with a third party due to a bug or just plain incompetence. It's still a good idea to protect yourself.