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Comment by eptcyka | Hacker News Reader

You are what you like, given enough information, the ID becomes pointless.

If I allowed tracking, which I don't, the ad companies wouldn't know what to make of me. Middle age white guy devops nerd into manga, anime, fishing, ramen, lo-fi, and coding. Yet, I wear Wrangler jeans, boots, and drink wine. Even my wife thinks I'm an oddball. My kids think I'm cool until it's bed time on a school night and then howls of "Dad, what about Gundam! It's almost over. We promise!"

They offer that information as criteria the ad campaigns can select for. The criteria could be pieces of specific datum or analyzed conclusions (e.g. predicted sexual orientation, political affiliation). Those conclusions may be inaccurate but they are still more accurate then trying to make those conclusions in a tv/print campaign. So it's still effective.

There may well be a company selling big-ass belt buckles with anime themes that is trying to reach you. When designing their ad campaign they could say they want people with an interest in anime/manga AND interest in westerns, trucks, boots or jeans. They would have no way to do that with a traditional media campaign.

I think you've put too focus on the things that you think make you special. And an advertiser may not even care that much. They would be looking at what ads are you a good match for, which means the things that you've posted.

No one human has to be capable of putting you in a box, there's this cottage industry devoted to making machines do it for us.

True, true. I didn't think it that way.

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