An interesting point on the ongoing discussions about government and other regulation on the online advertising industry. The “Internet Economy” or whatever you’d like to call it has to date been built on advertising revenue and mucking around with that could have some serious repercussions. All these free services, all this great content that’s being produced, all the streaming TV shows – they’re all ad-supported.
More direly, the economy is not exactly in the strongest shape right now. So getting involved in limiting how ads can be targeted and changing the technologies that run the advertising industry could further weaken just about everyone from small start-ups to big media companies.
Tread carefully, regulators, or your actions – largely taken to appease privacy advocates or others – could have consequences far more serious than you intend.
Chris Thilk 