Re: Targeted advertising is bunk anyway
If there isn't currently a market for "donkey milk", there won't be a "likes donkey milk" flag in anyone's advertising profile and you'd have to infer likely marks from their preference for dream-catchers or some other proxy for gullibility, so the "targeting" is not that useful in that scenario.
On the other hand, the low cost of advertising is a boon for scammers of all kinds.
There used to be pages of classified advertising in newspapers and, at least for some classes of commercial ads, publishers often ran a compensation scheme for disappointed or defrauded customers. The real issue with this "targeted" advertising is that the publishers are adding legitimacy to promotions they are entirely unaware of. The best way around this problem would be to make the publishers legally responsible for the advertisements they "host" and to see how fast Google washes its hands of its involvement.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
