no... dead reckon is a conspiracy theorist.
As was said before, this is all in the name of capitalism. What's stopping them from capitalizing on the data they collected by selling it to third parties.
If people wanted to see ads there wouldn't be popup blockers or ad blockers.
More to the point- Other companies have to ASK... as in opt IN, to get this type of information. For example- Microsoft with it's Customer Experience program (sure, it nags the bejesus out of you, but it is an opt in affair).
This is akin in some ways to "EULA inside the box" conundrum. If you cannot open the box without agreeing to the EULA that is inside the box how do you know what it is your agreeing to? In a similar vein, the "opt-out" approach defaults people to receiving this "service", and chances are- they will have no knowledge of it.
additionally re: the concept of ads. I have NEVER let an advertisement sway my opinion in any way; all commercials/advertisements are trying to sell a product- they aren't going to tell you anything bad about their product.
Using an ad as a jumping off point for any purchase whatsoever is starting the shopping experience on the wrong foot; obviously it wasn't something you needed. or else you would have it already. Instead it is more or less capitalizing on some peoples innate need to have more and more posessions.
Another thing is every click on the Ad generates revenue. How? How does an Ad generate revenue? from the advertising companies buying from the hosting page. This brings to light a possible conflict of interest- what if said site explicitly recommends a competing product?
Over time as a web site gets more and more of it's income through advertising there is a thirst- even a greed- for more.
In this situation even the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Consider the previous statements which seem to imply that google will do no wrong with the data. Honestly I don't see how collection, harvesting and categorizing my browser activities, and generally watching my every move online is a good thing, but apparently some people have decided that "privacy" is a thing of the past. Basically what happens is in their thirst for more advertisements they are forced to sanitize the site of "competing" products in order to get the advertisers approval. At that point what once was harmless advertising/advert profiling has now changed the content of a site and biassed it in one way or another thus contaminating the site as a whole.
of course, if anybody says so they just call them a conspiracy theorist. Of course in that instance they obviously haven't a clue as to what exactly a conspiracy theorist is, especially in this particular case as I presented nothing that can be called a conspiracy.