This all makes my head spin around fast enough to give me a headache!
Every time I look at matters such as these in what I think is a realistic manner, I reach the same conclusion, i.e. that much of my life was "out there" in the clear in public and other records looong before any of the current über-bad guys reared their ugly heads, and that since I can't make it go away, and I've got nothing new to hide, I'm just going to live my life on the path of least resistance (in my particular context).
I studiously avoid know data aggregators such as Google and Facebook, I run Ghostery and AdBlock, and as for the guys who've got only my ISP address, who cares if they know which innocuous medications the anonymous person who uses this particular computer takes or which sneakers se buys? It's simply not important enough to me to make me either lose sleep or invest more than minimal time in it!
Sure, I've been in many of joemike's enumerated situations, but they all fall into the same "So what?" category.
Appearing to wear your heart on your sleeve is a wonderful smokescreen, particularly when you're aware of possibilities and how to circumvent them!
A question, though: Everybody talks about targeted ads, and I'd love to know where people see them; I pretty much never see ANY ads, let alone any that I'd call "targeted".
