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Comment by mjevans | Hacker News Reader

It would be easiest to just ban ads targeted by anything OTHER than the non-customized on page content. It's fine for ads to be targeted based on what's seen. It's _possibly_ OK to target ads by __large__ regional geographic area. (E.G. traceroute seems to say your IP is near Major Big City, so that huge region or a TTL circle around it is an OK ad pool.)

Anything more specific is ripe for abuse and should just not be allowed. Comparatively that specificity would be roughly equivalent to traditional TV, Cable and 'Print' media.

This is specificity as consumer privacy protection. I'm against most types of ads generally from a mental health stance.

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Indeed, the main problem is that we've decided to legalize spyware and are now trying to contain the damage of that decision by playing whack-a-mole and trying to plug all the holes downstream.

Making spyware illegal (whether it's for ad targeting, or analytics, or "improving your experience") and enforcing CFAA-like penalties on company executives that knowingly violate the law would fix this problem overnight and for good.

since when has turning something illegal for which there already exists demand has ever solved a problem of this sort?

just one examples that I can't take out of my mind as the consequences are everywhere around me: war on drugs (and the original alcohol prohibition)

We're not talking banning something with demand from consumers like alcohol or other recreational drugs, we're talking about banning a harmful practice that companies engage in. Banning spyware is more akin to labor laws or environmental protections. Specifically it'd be a form of consumer protection.

It’s impossible to run marketing operations without GA and even session recording.

I entered a business where I pushed back for years, but at one point, you need to do it.

That's only because everyone else is using it. Banning it outright levels the playing field, and nobody needs it anymore.

Marketing, in the limit, is a zero-sum game (negative-sum, if you put a non-zero price on all the resources and labor wasted).

CFC-gasses, leaded gasoline, and DDT are the first I can think of. There are lots of cases where a ban of something harmful done by companies have successfully been banned

I don't disagree with personalized advertising, but this would be the way to do it. You have to attack the incentive, otherwise people will just come up with more nuanced and complicated ways to collect profitable data. Chipping away at collection routes for a trillion dollar industry simply won't work

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