How Google Analytics ruined marketing

Some years ago, I used to wonder why all kinds of companies were getting into "big data". Turns out, most of the examples I learned about were all doing analytics. Marketing teams have become like day-traders on wall street: Rather than investing in long term proven paths that happen to be slow, they are obsessed with collecting all kinds of scraps of current information. As a privacy advocate, I find it makes me scratch every "big data" job off the list whenever I look for employment. (That's not to say all "big data" jobs are that way, but why find out when you can just read the company name and ask yourself if that sort of company has anything to do with lots of data?)

I suspect, too, that the pervasiveness of GA has driven up the usage of NoScript as much as malicious JS awareness.

"Booked a rental car. Now, all I see are ads for that company. Everywhere. Ugh. This is what will drive the use of ad blockers."

But when you book another car from the same company it MUST be a direct result of those ads and nothing else.

I use the same company all the time because they are local, honest and some of their best staff bother to remember my name, even though I'm not a high user. It has nothing to do with their ads or, in fact, any of their online presence at all - their website sucks actually.