First and foremost - ads do not require personal information. Newspapers, television, and blogs have thrived on non-personalized ads for decades. The advent of targeted ads (the dam getting blown to hell) is what made general ads unfavorable (personalization and the absolute saturation of ads in every aspect of our lives).
/rant
That said, given that ads are a psychological trick to get you to purchase something (often something that you don't need in the first place), you're right: I do consider ads to be inherently bad.
"But mah blog isn't sustainable without ads" - If your blog depends on collecting a heap of pennies generated by psychological manipulation of your viewer base, your blog provides a net negative value to your viewers.
Newspapers, television, blogs, direct mail, billboards, etc. all rely on a modicum of audience targeting. Don't pretend that P&G would naively pay for laundry detergent ads in Playboy magazine because they didn't know who the magazine's audience was.
As with all things, it scales with technological advancements, which also includes new responsibilities (that this article is mentioning).
There’s a marked difference between targeting ads based on the surrounding content and targeting ads based on my age, gender, location, browsing history, purchasing history, religion, job, income, and social network.
Claims that they are equivalent feel like an attempt to normalize such invasive ad targeting.
Nothing in my comment said they were equivalent - As with all things, it scales with technological advancements, which also includes new responsibilities (that this article is mentioning).
/rant
That said, given that ads are a psychological trick to get you to purchase something (often something that you don't need in the first place), you're right: I do consider ads to be inherently bad.
"But mah blog isn't sustainable without ads" - If your blog depends on collecting a heap of pennies generated by psychological manipulation of your viewer base, your blog provides a net negative value to your viewers.
/end rant