Strawman. Where did I claim advertising wasn’t previously manipulative? I never made those claims. I’m concerned with the scale and effectiveness provided by these data pools. Don’t equate misleading marketing campaigns with the level of scale and effectiveness this offers. Again, see the Cambridge Analytica scandal for reference. It’s been proven that they can control a large demographic to sway an election. The means and effectiveness have never before been seen, and were made entirely possible by data collection. That’s the reason the data is so valuable, and that’s the reason so many resources are being poured into it. Eventually they will be able to use it to set opinion and control the majority of society.