worthless data
Given the challenges in getting useful data out of very large data sets I would have thought that the exabytes or whatever of data that the big trackers have must be close to useless in identifying trends for an individual to make targeted ads worthwhile. The government example is trying to identify terrorists, paedophiles and other threats to civilisation from the data they hoover up. The bigger the data set the bigger the number of false positives which renders the whole exercise pointless.
You can see this in operation on Amazon which bombards you with suggestions to buy something you have just bought.
Shirly, once the people paying for Google's ads work this out they will stop paying for it and Google et al will go bust. Or am I being naive and over optimistic in assuming ad purchasers are going to make that sort of nuanced thinking?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
