I sit on the side of the fence that says a blanket "NO" to all ads because I just don't trust the players in the game to have my interests AT ALL!

I also believe that the data-drive adtech business is a con: I currently don't believe that the mass-data vacuuming moves the needle enough to justify the levels of collection and that everything I hear in defence of it is from those with a vested interest in keeping the status quo.

Can anyone link me to unbiased research on the subject? By this I mean research that isn't funded by adtech companies or those that benefit from data collection at scale to sell ads or ad-related tech. Especially something that compares it to contextual ads, e.g. reading a review of the latest Flymo and the blogger has an ad for 10% off at the top of the article... no tracking, perhaps just a unique URL or something.

This may not exist. I hope it does!

I want to read reasoned, unbiased reports to see if there is any truth to it and am willing to change my mind: I still won't give up Ublock Origin though... it's still my data.