I don't want anyone tracking me. At the same time, to give them an olive branch, I would be willing to voluntarily indicate to trackers that I have certain interests. These would be vague. They might be something like this:
Preferred_Language=English
Preferred_Purchases=Computers,Cars,Gadgets
Preferred_Continent=North_America
This way I could give them as much or as little as I wanted. But this would actually help them. For starters, they would know what language I prefer to receive ads in. I'm okay with that. I don't mind telling them what language I speak. What I don't want is them figuring out my age, gender, politics, religion, age, handicap status, etc, from the emails or comments that I write or websites I visit or my contacts list, etc.
This was all solved in the "old days" of advertising.
Magazines, for example, would send out surveys to their subscribers so they could build a profile of their interests. Advertisers would then choose which magazines to advertise in based on the makeup of subscribers. It's not as accurate as tracking individual users, but the concept of "targeted ads" is as old as advertising itself.
You say you like computers, cars and gadgets? Fine. When you visit a computer related site (like Appleinsider) you'll automatically see computer related ads because those advertisers CHOSE to have their ads shown on this site. This is no different than automobile manufacturers advertising in Motor Trend or Road & Track.
Advertisers already know what types of users visit Appleinsider (Mac and iOS device users) so companies that sell those devices and software/accessories for them would be inclined to advertise here. To further narrow things down, sites like Appleinsider could also do surveys of users on things like gender, age, income and basic interests. Companies who advertise on Appleinsider would still have useful targeted ads that hit the key demographics they're looking for. And I wouldn't have to put up with seeing ads for hand lotion, vasectomies, Mexican food or anything else I happened to search for recently.
Seriously, don't you find it ridiculous to have ads for completely unrelated products on a computer site?
I understand and already knew all the points you make here. I'm not sure if you understood that my proposal would help advertisers target my general interest even when I visit sites that are NOT related to my general interests. That way I can still get ads that target my general interests. That's my attempt to help advertisers get me targeted ads even when web browsing is anonymized. The ONLY thing they know about me is what I offer them as my areas of interest. It would be sent right along with the HTTP GET request.
Apple is on the right path with this and advertisers will have to get more creative (in a good way) to work within the boundaries that Apple has created. I don't have any problems at a business level with opt-in based advertising and data acquisition or even publisher side content filtering based on opt-in or subscription based models. Do I prefer to get lots of free stuff and not have to put up with advertisements or even totally anonymous tracking? Hell yeah. But I'm intelligent enough to know that everything has a price tag on it and I'd rather both sides agree to the real "cost and fees" rather than hiding behind facades of BS and fantasy. Tell me what it costs and I'll decide whether I'm willing to pay for it. But don't feed me a line of crap about something being "free" when it's not really free. I can handle the truth.
It’s not rocket science understand the content you sponsor with your ads align to brand. This is how it use to work and it worked well. Same time authors should curate the ads they run to make content attractive.
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