BeIR/webis-touche2020 huggingface dataset:
This advertising strategy provides benefits by making marketing more efficient and allows smaller markets to develop

Targeted advertising using the wealth of personal information left for collection and collation online makes business far more efficient for advertisers. Until recently advertisers were forced to use ads that went into the world basically at random, hitting everyone and not necessarily reaching the desired audience. This meant that producers could rarely target small markets, and thus advertising and mass media products all focused on large groups.[1] Thus small producers have been crowded out from the mainstream. With the advent of targeted marketing, producers can now afford to compete for business and to advertise their services to the groups that actually want what they have to sell. Thus, businesses have been able to flourish that once would have languished without access to a proper market. An example of this is the targeting by niche fashion boutiques targeting the diffuse but expansive “hipster” market.[2] This has led to a more efficient business world, with lots of producers that can compete with the larger mainstream quite effectively. In politics the benefit could be equally great for outsider candidates and those from small parties who don’t have the fundraising potential of the main candidates.   [1] Columbus Metropolitan Library. “Using Demographics to Target Your Market”. 2012. http://www.columbuslibrary.org/research/tutorials/using-demographic [2] Fleur, B. “New Meaning for the Term ‘Niche Market’”. New York Times. 29 September 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/29/style/29iht-Rshop.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
This advertising strategy undermines people’s right to personal privacy

The data that is used in targeted marketing is freely available online and can be protected in many ways. The programmes that target marketing often do not ever gain real access to individuals’ identities, but rather collate their search details. It is highly unlikely that any of this information could be used to identify actual individuals. Furthermore, the information in question is put into the public sphere by individuals availing of online services and not guaranteed any form of special protection. They exist and are revealed in the public sphere, and belong there. It is therefore wrong to say that privacy is being undermined by targeted advertising. When data is accessed with no permission at all it is already against the law so no new ban would be needed.
The use of these strategies are alienating

The marketing programmes and collations have over time become far more sophisticated and textured in allocating ad space. While some people feel it a bit disconcerting that their computer seems to know what might interest them, many others have found that the targeted advertising has made the seeking out of desired goods and services far easier. And even if people feel it is a bit alienating, it does not necessarily stop them from availing of the marketed services. Nor does some people disliking it provide a good reason for banning the practice.
Demographic/profile-based advertising fundamentally alters the experience of the internet for people of different backgrounds

The extent to which the online experience is altered by targeted marketing is extremely limited. Certainly they are less influential on how people interact with the internet than are search engines’ own choices in search priorities. The user of Bing has a much more differentiated experience from the Google user, than do individuals targeted by demographic-based marketing strategies. Ultimately, it does not matter overmuch if people have somewhat differentiated experiences anyway as long as those different experiences make the online experience better.
Individual targeting undermines market and political fairness

If someone can afford more for a product should they not be charged more? Or if someone is willing to pay more why should the company not take advantage of that? This is not unfair it is simply a perfect market that would help with redistribution. In politics everyone votes for different reasons and it is right that politicians should be able to target those reasons to encourage a vote. Targeting potentially contradictory messages can be countered by the opponent also targeting counter ads. Campaigning is already negative, this is not much different, simply on a more granular level.
Better targeted advertising benefits consumers

Even if the services advertised are effective in providing services that may interest them, the fundamental violation of privacy entailed in compiling personal search data is too serious a danger to people than the fleeting benefits that this sort of advertising might furnish. But this form of advertising is often not as effective, since its reliance on programmes that stereotype demographics can often result in misallocation of advertising. Furthermore, the discomfort people feel at this advertising means they do not like experiencing it, useful or not.
It is legitimate to utilize this sort of information for advertising

The anonymity of this information is far from guaranteed, particularly when talking about such large troves of data the website handing over the information may not even be aware of everything it has handed over and firms’ data collection can indeed serve as a serious threat to people’s privacy and identity on the internet. The technology in use is extremely difficult to police, and the data, once collected, can wander off to less reputable places. Thus Facebook has claimed it has not handed over any data to Cambridge Analytica that then got used in political campaigning, but rather it went via a third party doing academic research.[1] Even if neither the provider of the data, or the initial purchaser intends to use the data in an above board manner there is no guarantee that will remain the case; the data itself is valuable and thus is likely to be sold on. It is not enough to claim this as a natural evolution of advertising when it is accepted that there are personal boundaries advertisers cannot cross, such as into the home. This advertising strategy carries too many risks to be permitted.   [1] Cadwalladr, Carole, ‘’I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower’, The Observer, 18 March 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump
This advertising strategy provides benefits by making marketing more efficient and allows smaller markets to develop

The benefit to small firms is far outweighed by the loss of privacy, something that the size of firms involved potentially makes worse. Smaller companies are unlikely to have the sophisticated data security that larger businesses do making it more likely that the information will fall into the hands of individuals who wish to misuse it. Moreover, if targeted advertising alienates consumers then those small firms who are able to use such advertising may not be getting the full benefit. While individuals may well enjoy the various smaller or niche services being offered, they often do not like having it shoved in their faces. Being put off can detract customers from these markets, preventing the flourishing of niche market businesses desired. The strategy is just too invasive and disconcerting. Furthermore, far from successfully hitting their markets all the time, the programmes used to collate data rely on stereotypes and broad characterizations of users to try to reach their markets. This lack of sophistication leads to further alienation by users.
This advertising strategy undermines people’s right to personal privacy

Targeted advertising based on profiles and demographic details is the product of information acquired in a fashion that is fundamentally invasive of individuals’ privacy. When individuals go online they act as private parties, often enjoying anonymity in their personal activities. Yet online services collate information and seek to use it to market products and services that are specifically tailored to those individuals. This means that individuals’ activities online are in fact susceptible to someone else’s interference and oversight, stealing from them the privacy and security the internet has striven to provide. At the most basic level, the invasion of privacy that collating and using private data gleaned from online behaviour is unacceptable.[1] There is a very real risk of the information being misused, as the data can be held, Facebook for example keeps all information ever entered to the social network,[2] and even resold to third parties that the internet users might not want to come into possession of their personal details. People should always be given the option of consent to the use of their data by any party, as is the case in many jurisdictions, such as the European Union has done in implementing its 'cookie law'.[3] But this has not always been the case in practice. GSR, working with Cambridge Analytica, was able to access data not just on those who consented to take part in ‘academic research’ but on their friends who would not even know their data had been accessed.[4] This can lead to serious abuses of individuals’ private information by corporations, or other agents that might have less savoury uses for the information.   [1] The Canadian Press. “Academics Want Watchdog to Probe Online Profiling”. CTV News. 28 July 2008. http://www.ctvnews.ca/academics-want-watchdog-to-probe-online-profiling-1.311784 [2] Lewis, J., “Facebook faces EU curbs on selling users’ interests to advertisers”, The Telegraph, 26 November 2011, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8917836/Facebook-faces-EU-curbs-on-selling-users-interests-to-advertisers.html [3] European Union, “Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council”, Official Journal of the European Union, L 337/11, 18 December 2009, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2009:337:0011:0036:En:PDF [4] Cadwalladr, Carole, ‘’I made Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare tool’: meet the data war whistleblower’, The Observer, 18 March 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump
The use of these strategies are alienating

Internet users have come to understand the nature of demographic and personal marketing, and have generally rejected it. This is because they consider the whole process invasive, with their personal details exploited to the profit of third party businesses seeking to peddle their wares. This has resulted in a substantial backlash against these forms of marketing, and built up prejudicial attitudes toward the companies that use these schemes, and the internet services that facilitate them. The facts of these attitudes have been borne out in a number of research studies, showing that as much as 66% of Americans do not want their personal information used to tailor advertising to them.[1] This has led to less than the desired outcome for marketers who rather than experiencing their sales increased efficiently through more targeted marketing alienate their potential customers. More than just invasive, this form of marketing tends toward stereotypes, using programmes that favour broad brushstrokes in their marketing, resulting in stereotyped services on the basis of apparent gender and race. A recent example of this sort of racial profiling took place in 2013 when it was revealed that having a stereotypical “black” name brought up ads for criminal records checks 25% more often than for users with other names.[2] This was, to say the least, considered exceptionally alienating by many users. This and other incidents have compounded the sense of alienation from these forms of marketing among consumers.   [1] Pinsent Masons. “US Web Users Reject Behavioural Advertising, Study Finds”. Out-Law. 30 September 2009. http://www.out-law.com/page-10410 [2] Gayle, D. “Google Accused of Racism After Black Names are 25% More Likely to Bring Up Adverts for Criminal Records Checks”. The Daily Mail.5 February 2013. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2273741/Google-accused-racism-black-names-25-likely-bring-adverts-criminal-records-checks.html [2] Gayle, D. “Google Accused of Racism After Black Names are 25% More Likely to Bring Up Adverts for Criminal Records Checks”. The Daily Mail.5 February 2013. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2273741/Google-accused-racism-black-names-25-likely-bring-adverts-criminal-records-checks.html
Individuals’ property and income are an index of deserving achievement, and of value contributed in the market place to society

Income alone is not a sufficient measure of an individual’s contribution to society. Much income, and proportionally more so among wealthy people, is not the product of effort, but rather is unearned. The state is not punishing people for their contributions to society when it taxes them in a progressive manner, but rather simply acknowledges that some people are more able to pay greater amounts, namely the wealthy, and can thus be levied from accordingly.
The ability to orchestrate a progressive taxation regime gives undue and dangerous power to the state

A state with the ability to levy taxes will not necessarily be evil and dominating of the wealthy. People can always leave a country, so governments must always be accommodating of wealthy citizens, and can be so even within a progressive tax system. The tyranny of the majority can only persist when there are no legal protections for individual citizens and minorities, but these exist almost universally in Western states; there is no reason to think this would somehow change in the presence of progressive taxation.
The aim of taxation should be to provide equality of opportunity, not of outcom

The state’s sole role in taxation is not merely to provide equality of opportunity, but also to foster social justice through the promotion of greater social equality. This does not mean that there should not be any inequalities between citizens, but rather it means that by limiting income disparities individuals in society have more in common and are thus more able to interact in a peaceful societal framework. Progressive taxes promote this end by reducing the incomes of the very top and using the tax revenues to improve the situation of the worst off, closing the gap between the two groups and fostering broader social interaction and cooperation.
Those who have more owe more to the state

Wealthier people benefit from the state more than do those who are worse off for two reasons. First, they have more to lose in the absence of the state. Without the rule of law, people would no longer be bound by any power to respect one another’s property rights. A rich person has much more to lose should there be a reversion to the state of nature; nothing would shield him from the mob. For this reason it is in the interest of the wealthy to preserve the just rule of law in the state and to uphold its institutions. It does so by funding it through taxation, and those who have more to lose have a greater interest in paying more to ensure its continuity. The second benefit the rich have is that they have gained more from the state than have the poor and less well off. It is only within a state system that maintains order and provides vital services that markets can form and be maintained.[1] Warren Buffett, for example, has argued that he could never have amassed anywhere near the sort of wealth he has in a country without the rule of law, such as Bangladesh.[2] Wealthy business owners and corporations use state utilities far more than poorer individuals quite often, when for example they use public roads to move their vast fleets of trucks, while individuals only drive their personal car. The state guarantees property rights, which allows markets to form and provides the protections and services to businesses that need them to function. Those who profit from that have an obligation to contribute to its upkeep. [1] Lakoff, George and Bruce Budner. “Hidden Truths of Progressive Taxes”. Institute for America’s Future. 2007. Available: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/04/16/hidden_truths_of_progressive... [2] Terkel, Amanda. “Warren Buffett: ‘I Should Be Paying a Lot More in Taxes’”. Huffington Post. 2010. Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/21/warren-buffett-paying-more-taxe...
Progressive taxation promotes a more equal, more harmonious society

Progressive taxation provides real equality of opportunity, and serves to level the playing field so that social classes are not fixed. Everyone deserves a chance to climb the economic ladder, but without a regime of progressive taxation this is nearly impossible.[1] If tax revenues are generated by flat or regressive taxes the poor will necessarily have to contribute substantial portions of their own income to the state, cutting into their ability to consume and save. Social services must still be financed, and the best way to do that is through a progressive tax regime that makes those most able to pay more pay more; if more of the burden is placed on the poor and disadvantaged, as it must in a flat-rate system, fewer people will be able to climb out from the social strata in which they are born.[2] The more equal society created by these taxes is thus more equitable, since it affords people greater opportunities. It is also more harmonious, since well-funded services keep people from feeling desperate and to turn to such things as crime. But greater equality itself can also be beneficial, as it reduces distinctions between groups in society, and prevents stratification into social classes based on wealth. People who are more alike can sympathize and empathize more with one another. Progressive taxation thus promotes a very real and powerful social message that can greatly benefit social cohesion. [1] Young, H. Peyton. 1990. “Progressive Taxation and Equal Sacrifice”. The American Economic Review 80(1): 253-266. [2] Benabou, Roland. “Social Mobility and the Demand for Redistribution: The Poum Hypothesis”. The Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2001. Available: http://www.jstor.org/pss/2696470
Individuals’ property and income are an index of deserving achievement, and of value contributed in the market place to society

A progressive taxation system essentially assumes that the property rights of the poor are more sacred than those of the wealthy. Somehow the wealthy have a less proportionate ownership right than do the less well-off simply by dint of their greater wealth.[1] This is the height of injustice. An individual’s income is a measure of his overarching societal worth, by reflecting his ability to produce goods and services people find socially desirable and to signify his level of competence and desirability by his employer. The state should not punish people for this greater social worth by taxing them disproportionally to others. When it does so it expects people to work for the sake of others to an extent that is not fair, effectively consigning them to a kind of forced labor, by which parts of the wealth they work to acquire is appropriated by the state to a degree beyond which it is willing to do to others.[2] Such a regime is manifestly unjust. [1] Seligman, Edwin. “Progressive Taxation in Theory and Practice”. Publications of the American Economic Association 9(1): 7-222. 1894. [2] Nozick, R. Anarchy, State and Utopia. New York: Basic Books. 1974.
The ability to orchestrate a progressive taxation regime gives undue and dangerous power to the state

The power to tax is power to destroy. A state with power over a progressive taxation system can put the wealthy in effective thrall, and use them to benefit its own ends. This is exacerbated by such phenomena as the tyranny of the majority which can lead the majority of less wealthy and have-nots to demand more and more services and paying for them by inflicting ever more onerous taxes on the wealthy while diminishing their own burdens. Furthermore, so long as the tax burden is disproportionately leveled on the few, no one can see the growing size of the state.[1] With flat or regressive consumption tax everyone can feel the growth of the state. They can also understand the costs associated with it, driving them to have more realistic preferences and to make more rational demands of the state rather than treating the rich as a perpetual piggy bank. [1] Dorn, James. “Ending Tax Socialism”. Cato Institute. 1996. Available: http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6297
Those able to pay more should pay more into the tax system

Simply because someone can feasibly pay more does not mean he should be obligated to do so. Everyone’s property rights should be considered equal; the property rights of the wealthy should not be trodden upon by the state while leaving that of the less well-off alone. Fundamentally, any amount of appropriation of what belongs to an individual for the benefit of others is a kind of theft, and if the state is going to tax people, morally it can only do so if it treats everyone equally, which progressive taxation certainly does not do.
The aim of taxation should be to provide equality of opportunity, not of outcom

Taxation should not be about trying to engineer a more equal society. The purpose of taxes is to furnish necessary services people need to become competitive free agents in the economy. Progressive taxes take unduly from some to give to others in the hope of fostering social equality. Yet such efforts can only be harmful, as they breed resentment from rich toward the poor for taking undue amounts of their wealth for their consumption, and feelings of entitlement from poor who feel the wealthy owe them the money they pay, and thus feel happy to levy ever more odious taxes from them.[1] Society is best served by promoting a system of taxation that fosters equality of opportunity, by providing essential services to which everyone contributes in accordance with their ability to pay. This is better serviced through a system of flat-taxes, such as in Russia where there is a flat tax of 13%,[2] that promote a system of proportionality in taxation, rather than progressive taxes that focus unduly upon the contributions of the few to the many. [1] The Frugal Libertarian. “Immorality of Progressive Income Tax”. Nolan Chart. 2008. Available: http://www.nolanchart.com/article5208.html [2] Mardell, Mark, ‘Pros and cons of Rick Perry’s flat tax plan’, BBC News, 26 October 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15468945
The state should promote the efficient distribution of income in order to maximize the utility derived by society from its economic resources

It is not the state’s role to efficiently distribute economic resources; the market does a much better job of that. When the state seeks to distribute income, there is substantial efficiency loss. This is due to the so-called “leaky bucket” of distribution, as money is lost or wasted through the bureaucratic processes necessary to redistribute income and wealth. Progressive taxation only serves to exacerbate these inefficiencies by breeding more and more complex structures for their implementation.
A well-implemented progressive taxation scheme serve to promote economic growth

Progressive taxation does not improve economic growth. This is because, when the rich are heavily taxed, they have less likely to invest in new enterprises. Higher taxes serve as a disincentive to investment, both domestic and foreign. As to economic growth in the United States, statistics can also be misleading. The high growth of the 1950s was due to the fact that the United States was essentially the only industrial power whose infrastructure was not devastated by World War II. A better data set can be seen between the stagflation of the 1970s with its high taxes, and the relative increase in economic growth that followed with the tax cuts of the 1980s. Soaking the rich only serves to reduce the economic success of a country.