[sp332]

I have a better idea. How about turning the tables and making a service that collects info about advertisers instead of users? Then let users browse your database of companies (and/or the products they're pushing) and actively search for what they went. Filters could be ecological stance of the company, color or style of the product, user reviews, published "expert" reviews, etc. Turn all that data over to the user and let them be in control of what ads they see. Let them spy on advertisers instead of vice-versa. It would also be way cheaper since you don't have to maintain this vast data-collecting network.

[foobarqux]

You can only search for what you already know about (and want to search for).

[sp332]

I already find tons of stuff I didn't know on Google! More, seriously, advertisers already "target" ads based on such loose parameters as age or location. Let me set my age as a filter if I want to, then you can show me those ads. Pinterest is starting to monetize people browsing semi-aimlessly through pages of tangentially-related items. This could just be a variation on that.

[divegeek]

Actually, with Google, advertisers don't target anyone, really. They have a few knobs to tweak, but mostly it's Google that does the targeting, based on much smarter (but not yet smart enough) algorithms.

[marcosdumay]

So, you must correlate advertisers.

But it's hard to design something that can not be gamed. As a user, there's no reason to adopt the more obvious possible solutions, because I wouldn't be able to verify that I'm not being tracked. (What means that I'd adblock it like any other source, and thus there's no reason for the site owner to use this one service.)

[johnchristopher]

Are you implying ads is the only way to know about products and ideas ?

[rrtulsa]

very true-did not think about this-good point

[rrtulsa]

This would work if it did not interrupt G's current revenue stream- not sure how the rates would be set for the advertisers- especially smaller ones who need high target niched key words.