Targeted ads exist. People find them “creepy,” which implies that they are targeted based on factual data. Therefore, we know that data brokers are taking the more expensive route and collecting factual data (or striving to). They would not do this without a profit motive. Perhaps their data are being compared with a competitor’s to enforce quality… we don’t really know. But we know that they value the quality of their data because their customers do. Consequently, it must be the case that deliberately polluting their data devalues their product and erodes their business model over time.
