> Let's be clear: the best targeted ads I will ever see are the ones I get from a search engine when it serves an ad for exactly the thing I was searching for. Everybody wins: I find what I wanted, the vendor helps me buy their thing, and the search engine gets paid for connecting us. I don't know anybody who complains about this sort of ad. It's a good ad.

These ads are good in theory (and great when they work), but I find that, most of the time, they just result in me searching for one product and the first result being an ad for a competing product.

> There's another kind of ad that works well on me. I play video games sometimes, and I use Steam, and sometimes I browse through games on Steam and star the ones I'm considering buying. Later, when those games go on sale, Steam emails me to tell me they are on sale, and sometimes then I buy them. Again, everybody wins: I got a game I wanted (at a discount!), the game maker gets paid, and Steam gets paid for connecting us. And I can disable the emails if I want, but I don't want, because they are good ads.

This I totally agree with (though I might be biased, as a gamedev). These ads are awesome because I told Steam that I want these games and that I want ads about these games.