Can I voluntarily register somewhere and profile myself for the purposes of ad targeting? I'd really hate to just get completely random ads everywhere.
It's not that bad. For a long time ads could only be targeted based on correlations rather than personal information. Ads weren't completely random. You would read a travel magazine targeted at men and there would be advertisements in there about flights to some location or recreational activities or male-coded razor blades, whereas a travel magazine targeted at women would have advertisements in it about flights to the same location, different recreational activities and female-coded razor blades. You would take a train to work and there would be advertisements about local restaurants and banks offering home loans in your area. You would exist and you'd get advertisements about an American soft drink.
In the early days of the internet, few enough companies wanted to advertise on the internet - advertisers viewed it already as targeted at a certain segment of society - so advertisements were generally very low value i.e. crap. Tracking technology let advertisers know that they could actually find the people didn't realise were using the internet. But nowadays we all know everyone is on the internet, and we tend to use the same sites regularly, so you could get adequately targeted ads (as a set of eyeballs - not necessarily as an advertiser) just by using the internet.
That's the crux of the issue: 99% of companies wanting to sell me something doesn't have a product I want. Of the remainder, I already am a customer in 99% of the cases.
Are people downvoting because they think that no targeting means no ads? It just means worse ads and MORE ads because the ones that are there are less valuable. Ironic.
No targeting means they aren't keeping a dossier on my movements around the web. I don't want that, and I don't care what it does to the quality of ads I see. Besides, I'm sure my ad-blocker is up to the task.
Yes, but you don't have to do anything. Google is pushing a new advertising paradigm [1] wherein the tracking is done client-side and then sent (at your discretion) to websites for ad-serving.
In the early days of the internet, few enough companies wanted to advertise on the internet - advertisers viewed it already as targeted at a certain segment of society - so advertisements were generally very low value i.e. crap. Tracking technology let advertisers know that they could actually find the people didn't realise were using the internet. But nowadays we all know everyone is on the internet, and we tend to use the same sites regularly, so you could get adequately targeted ads (as a set of eyeballs - not necessarily as an advertiser) just by using the internet.