Following You Home: the Ethics of Targeted advertising

Advertisement is an inescapable part of the cultural fabric. It’s plastered on billboards, wedged between news reports, inserted into radio, and now asserts its grip on the Internet. Ads are inescapable, and they seem to only get better. Websites have become inaccessible to visitors with adblockers. More concerning, however, is the growing intelligence of advertisement. It isn’t uncommon for users to find banner ads on websites selling a same product they recently looked up on Amazon or Google. Many websites tailor content depending on previous behaviours and preferences. YouTube is now…