And I actually appreciate the fact that, when I go to Facebook or see a panel of Google Network advertisements, I generally see advertisements for things I might, conceivably, be interested in buying. The most annoying thing about advertising, to my mind, is that for most of my life I have been deluged with come-ons for products I had no interest in: perfumes and luxury cars and the latest pharmaceutical advance that will alleviate some minor annoyance with the possible side effect of immediate horrible death.

Frankly, more businesses should be doing more microtargeting in the hopes of bringing more of us more things we actually want. As Richard Rushfield noted in his Hollywood-business newsletter, the Ankler, movie studios continue to throw tens, sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars at television advertising in order to create mass awareness, rather than thinking smartly about how to reach the ever-shrinking number of people who actually want to go to movie theaters.

“Ask yourself: you know how the one time you googled that plaid shirt and the ad for it followed you around the internet for a year? Has a movie ad ever followed you around? Maybe you’ve seen 20 Tom Cruise movies? Does Tom Cruise make unnatural appearances ahead of his upcoming films on your Facebook page like those pair of pink boat shoes you were two-percent thinking of buying six months ago do?”