> How much of your choice in products is based on word of mouth? How do you know those purchases are not as a result of ads.

This is an essentially unsatisfiable burden of proof, isn’t it? In fifteen years on the Web I haven’t once bought or even looked up anything based on an explicit advertisement, even though I find “recommendation engines” occasionally useful. (Then again, I mostly use those as a workaround for crappy catalogues and site search, and the best recommendations I’ve seen were on pirate sites...)

That’s not to say that you’re not bringing up a valid point, it’s just that it’s not a fast dismissal it’s phrased as. I don’t know how one would actually go around proving this kind of hypothesis, or even how it would be phrased: “Ads have had no influence on my life”? Obviously false, given how pervasive they are. Too strong. “Ads have had no influence on which things I’ve used or bought”? Similarly false (I can think of several movies I’ve bought on VHS just to avoid the butchered TV cut). Too strong. “Ads in favour of a certain product line have never made me more favourably disposed towards that line”? Sounds plausible at least, but I’ve no idea how one could even approach proving that, and then there are availability-heuristic issues which are frequently what’s motivating the ads in the first place. Too weak.

Yet the underlying idea doesn’t seem that preposterous in my experience. It might be with more knowledge—economics certainly doesn’t come with a warranty of being unsurprising—but you’re not providing that here.

> Targeted ads are not the same as tracked ads. Sho[w] HN posts are targeted ads.

Then there are two different definitions of “targeted ads” in play: what the EU policy discussion concerned with, and the link’s title calls “targeted ads”, is specifically ads based on user behaviour; ads selected on the base of the page they would be placed on are explicitly OK ...

> "You purchased 600 dog poop bags from Amazon, here are 15 other variations of the same product that you might want" in a recipe article is targeted.

... But these are not (or at least not automatically), and I’d say there’s a distinction between them that is worth maintaining, one that the text under discussion chooses to express with the qualifier “targeted” for the latter but not the former.

There might be an objection that this is not the common meaning of the word “targeted” in the industry, and for all I know it may not be (I’ve certainly seen it used for just about any strategy for ad placement at all), but all in all, when dealing with an industry essentially built around twisting and shifting word meanings in the desired direction, which has already shown a propensity for manipulating the terminology around this particular issue to be as confusing and unappealing as possible (see “legitimate interest” in GDPR popups, which is not “legitimate interest” per the GDPR definition, or it wouldn’t even need an off switch), I’m not inclined to be particularly charitable.

I mean, if reasonable people show up and shout “aargh stupid journos, these are not targeted ads, these are frobnicated ads!”, if in fact every ad person ever mouths “frobnicated” every time the newsman on TV says “targeted”, then sure. We’ve certainly seen enough of that in both IT-related anything and anything-related legislation. But so far I’ve seen nothing that would point in that direction, only attempts (both willing and out of simple lack of attention) to erase, shift, or blur the boundary the EU legislators are trying to draw here. (I’m not idealizing them, and honestly I don’t have high hopes here, but credit where credit is due.)