[Flimm]

There are many ways to monetize free online websites. The most obvious way is advertising. Advertising can be privacy-respecting.

The Guardian in particular is funded by a trust fund, by donations, by advertising, and maybe by other sources of revenue as well.

[vovavili]

>Advertising can be privacy-respecting

Not the effective kind.

[grishka]

The entire previous history of humanity we only had non-targeted ads in newspapers, on billboards, and on TV and radio, and everyone was ok with that. But suddenly, on the internet, it's somehow "not possible" to have advertising that isn't personalized or even dynamic at all. How so?

[beardyw]

Whilst I broadly agree, ads have been targeted to location for a long time. Newspapers and TV would have geographical editions so you don't advertise say your theatre production to people who are too far away to care. With billboards or earlier fliers, you did the same.

[grishka]

Of course. Also TV ads would usually be shown during programs that the advertiser's target audience is most likely to be watching. Like ads for toys between cartoons. That's all fine, you can do the same on the internet without harming anyone's privacy. As an advertising network, you can receive the topic information from the websites themselves as part of them signing up, and users' approximate location can be derived from the IP address.

But instead, they're all hellbent on doing some form of personalization (via tracking) and attribution, and act as if the world would end if all technical means to do that, like third-party cookies, would cease to exist.

[Flimm]

Even personalised advertising can be done without sharing personal data with 100+ third parties. For example, ask the user to fill out a survey about their interests, and then serve them more personalised ads based on their survey answers, all without sharing personal data with third parties.

[cdfsdsadsa]

I don't think that's true - I'm certain that the advertising has always done everything it can to maximise return on investment.

[tcfhgj]

> and everyone was ok with that

not really