> I disagree, it's not a false dichotomy, it's a real one.
This is very demonstrably false: Search engines can serve ads that are highly targeted to the user's query without knowing anything else about them.
You can see the gangbusters revenue that Google generates just from simple keyword searches: "insurance", "loans", "mortgage", "attorney", etc.[1] Not that they don't also try to learn more about you, but it's correct to say "tracking vs. Viagra" is a false dichotomy.
This is very demonstrably false: Search engines can serve ads that are highly targeted to the user's query without knowing anything else about them.
You can see the gangbusters revenue that Google generates just from simple keyword searches: "insurance", "loans", "mortgage", "attorney", etc.[1] Not that they don't also try to learn more about you, but it's correct to say "tracking vs. Viagra" is a false dichotomy.
[1] https://www.wordstream.com/articles/most-expensive-keywords