As in most advertising, the message is delivered not by the merchant, but by professionals. In the case of those who sell advertising on the net, their commercial customers are almost totally ignorant of the medium. The stuff just doesn't work, no matter how cheap and widespread it is. Of course, the customer relies on the publicist for feedback on the effectiveness of the advertisning. The publicist will tell him exactly what he wants to hear.

Nobody reads bulk mail advertising delivered by the Post Office, either, and I think the merchants know this, but there is such a hefty subsidy for bulk mail, at the expense of other postal customers, that they do it anyway. If all mail paid a fixed 1st class rate (except worthy exceptions like charities, etc), the Postal Service would make a profit. Right now, it's just a giveaway to private enterprise, corporate welfare.

Much the same can be said for advertising on TV. There is just so much of it that the consumer is saturated. He no longer cares or notices. Even when commericals are artfully constructed to be amusing, interesting or beautiful and they catch the public's attention, people remember the commercial but forget the product.

I suspect that if the dollar effectiveness of advertising were to be studied by a neutral researcher (one who didn't have a stake in the continuation of the practice) it would completely overturn the industry. How would the American economy adjust if, say, 80% of all advertising was proven to actually cost more money than it made for the vendor. If advertising expenditures suddenly started to drop, what effect would this have on the economy?

Of course, those in the know are well aware of this, or at the very least, suspect it to be true. The upshot is that introducing new technologies to target or isolate demographic or interest groups is on the rise, as well as the data needed to drive this directed messaging. Even if totally benign in initial application, the potential for privacy abuses is obvious, especially if unauthorized users get access to the data. Personal data has become a commodity, as we all are aware, and the very fact that so many are willing to pay for it argues that it is indeed valuable. Someone is selling a piece of me and I don't even know it