"What’s the difference between recommendations from a friend and recommendations from a perfectly targeted advertising network? If anything, the friend is likely to be less useful."
No. A friend is much more likely to have your best interests at heart, especially when choosing between you and the advertiser. A targeted advertisement will usually be designed to benefit the advertiser/product, and not for you.
Although, I'm interested in the potential in target advertising's version of the big religious/motivational billboards. Imagine a Google search history that seems to be leading to suicide, and then ads popping up to convince you otherwise...
No. A friend is much more likely to have your best interests at heart, especially when choosing between you and the advertiser. A targeted advertisement will usually be designed to benefit the advertiser/product, and not for you.
Although, I'm interested in the potential in target advertising's version of the big religious/motivational billboards. Imagine a Google search history that seems to be leading to suicide, and then ads popping up to convince you otherwise...