[tomkarlo]

"There is a third alternative: free product, adblock, no ads."

By that logic, it's also possible to avoid high grocery bills by sticking some things in your pocket and not paying for them. Just because you can do something doesn't mean it's a scalable or ethical option.

Google's core breakthrough in advertising was to close the loop and push advertisers towards ads that are relevant to customers, where they know exactly how much they're earning per dollar they spend on ads. Ads have, actually, improved quite a bit over the past 10 years. The famous line was "half of ad spending is wasted, we just don't know which half" (paraphrased)... now they know which half.

To go back to the OP's subject - the reason why retargeting has grown so popular is that it WORKS LIKE A MOFO. Retargeted ads are usually an order of magnitude more relevant and are immensely cost effective in terms of spend versus conversions. The best indicator that someone's interested in buying a Ford? They visited the Ford site.

[rglullis]

If using adblock is unethical, so is torrenting TV shows; and I thought you agreed with me that the MPAA claim is bullshit.

Google is better than the alternatives, sure. It doesn't mean that it is any good. The ads I get on my cell phone are still awful, to the point of discouraging me to use it more.

[storborg]

It's not contradictory to agree that the MPAA's "every pirate is a stolen sale" claim is bullshit, but still think that torrenting TV shows is unethical.

Some may believe that the ethical choice is just to not watch that TV show.

[niels_olson]

> Some may believe that the ethical choice is just to not watch that TV show.

Here's my dilemma: I don't own a TV, I can't be bothered to even try to download, let alone watch. I tried with The Wire, it became a suffering labor to t trough it, no matter how interesting. Mad Men? Good luck. I have no time.