any fiction writer, character artist, designer. any researcher or journalist, and all the kindest friends who find the question's answer before you even have time to search yourself
we've all googled something one fucking time and had your targeted ads think you a person entirely new
i have researched hair types that are not my own, i have looked up image references of vitiligo, i buy femme and masc clothes. i research countries i do not live in and businesses i would never patronize.
yet the interface i use to search is a business funded largely by selling ads and associated data, however indirectly
a search engine's priorities laying in profit is bad, we all know this. but it's also insidious thinking, this assumption that knowledge only exists to build a data profile on a user.
i live in objection to the capitalist assumption that one would only ever seek knowledge self-applicable. that first and foremost, the reason to look up information is to, yourself, capitalize on it.
i don't want ads to represent a false me, a version built from simply wanting to understand.
i don't want ads to represent me at all.
...and if i see one more goddamn Hims/Hers ad because google can't decide if i'm a guy or a girl, i'm going to Secret Third Thing