“The real difference between the old and the new ages of data-intelligence-driven consumer marketing, and the invasion of privacy they entail, is that lots of people are finally aware that it is taking place. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, the recent reports about Google, and related events have contributed to that knowledge, but not as much as the barrage of rapidly correlated advertising served in apps and on web pages. The postal mail comes once a day, but people see hundreds or thousands of new renditions of their own private information in the same time on online. It’s easy to mistake the proximate cause—big, shadowy tech firms—for the ultimate one: over half a century of business-intelligence techniques that have been honed, productized, and weaponized out of sight. Google and Facebook are just the tip of an old, hardened iceberg.”

Source: Welcome to the Age of Privacy Nihilism – Nextgov