Ban Targeted Advertising

While I do not feel as strongly about online advertising as some, the more I read about sensible solutions to the plethora of problems it causes, the more I come around: ban targeted advertising — if not wholesale, then perhaps to groups below a certain threshold. One article suggested a ban on targeting groups of less than 1,000 people, and that sounds like a good start to me.

Would this policy have negative effects? Of course — on everyone from the large companies profiting from this practice, to the small ones who use the giants’ tools to get the word out about their niche. This decision does not come down to banning targeted ads which will hurt many companies, or saving those companies from harm, though; it comes down to banning targeted ads which will hurt many companies, or allowing this existential threat — existential to the Internet, to Democracy — to persist. These are the stakes. Would this policy have negative effects? Of course; would these negative effects override the positive ones? I say no — and it seems like more and more agree.