I've worked in advertising for 15 years, in different parts of the industry and in different roles.
The thing is: ad tech doesn't want your personal data. Ad tech doesn't even want 'individually-targeted' ads. Advertising is applied sociology and works with statistics and its laws of large numbers.
What ad tech really wants is to assign you to broad classes of sociological groups. ('Gamer', 'parent', 'hobbyist', 'instagram user', etc.)
The insane spree of personal data collection by Google and Facebook isn't driven by advertising needs. It's a deeper and more insidious strategy for things in the future that aren't advertising-related. (I think the strategy bosses in these FAANG companies imagine a future with something like China's social credit system, except on steroids. But this is just my hunch.)
I think it needs to be considered that you are an outlier within the advertising business. To wit, every advertiser I have worked with (especially ones that are high up in a company) believes that they need as much data on their customers as they can get their hands on.
The thing is: ad tech doesn't want your personal data. Ad tech doesn't even want 'individually-targeted' ads. Advertising is applied sociology and works with statistics and its laws of large numbers.
What ad tech really wants is to assign you to broad classes of sociological groups. ('Gamer', 'parent', 'hobbyist', 'instagram user', etc.)
The insane spree of personal data collection by Google and Facebook isn't driven by advertising needs. It's a deeper and more insidious strategy for things in the future that aren't advertising-related. (I think the strategy bosses in these FAANG companies imagine a future with something like China's social credit system, except on steroids. But this is just my hunch.)