The EU's war on behavioral advertising
So many words to defend the indefensible. Its not a &quot;war&quot;, it is asserting the collective will of an entire continent (made up of fairly diverse cultures and a long history of painful social strife, political and racial oppression and persecution). The aim is to close Pandora&#x27;s box that was (as it happened) opened by the amoral and asocial advertising industry that cannot see beyond its (admittedly long) nose.<p>The issue is not advertising, the issue is the construction, classification and use of human profiles through the collection of behavioral data, by-and-large without the subjects being aware or cognizant of the possible short and long-term implications. Once that practice has been legitimized and proven ultra-lucrative and empowering for its practitioners it has undermined the very foundation of digital society.<p>Just to be clear, there is nothing the adtech industry can do to assure us that behavioral targeting can be made safe. The large scale processing of human behavioral data followed by the direct algorithmic application of real life actions is a weapon of mass social destruction. It is inherently dangerous and should be outlawed. Full stop.<p>There is a case to be made for taming the nuclear energy of behavioral data  in reactors (as opposed to bombs). But the architecture of such systems will be dramatically different to the digital wild-west regime that has been inflicted on society. Consequently also highly regulated with countless lead layers of protection (and thus also far less lucrative &#x2F; interesting for the digital cowboys).