> Imagine if you couldnt target advertisements. Imagine the waste.
Following your argument, the world 30 years ago (when we didn't have targeted ads) would have been a terrible place. Perhaps you should explain why it wasn't.
To me it only means that advertising in itself is not really advantageous, except if everybody else is doing it. It's like a prisoners' dilemma for companies and we are all paying the price in the form of more expensive products, but also in the form of more consumerism.
Advertising was targeted then. TV ads were bought by geography, channel and timeslot. Newspaper ads targeted people who read newspapers, radio ads targeted people by channel and time of day, billboards by geography etc etc.
All of those things made the world a better place, as did the targetability of common-sense regulations around advertising to children during their regularly scheduled TV-watching timeslots.
I'm aware of that, but we're talking about personalized ads based on internet tracking. I think most would agree that there is a huge difference with the type of advertising you are talking about. In fact, I think many people here including me would think that the advertising model of 30 years ago was okay/acceptable compared to what it is now.
Regarding children needing protection against any kind of ads, that's a good point, but dropping targeted ads does not mean we would need to drop targetability of regulations as you put it.
Following your argument, the world 30 years ago (when we didn't have targeted ads) would have been a terrible place. Perhaps you should explain why it wasn't.
To me it only means that advertising in itself is not really advantageous, except if everybody else is doing it. It's like a prisoners' dilemma for companies and we are all paying the price in the form of more expensive products, but also in the form of more consumerism.