The reason that they so often seem so is because of the massive surveillance enabling targeted ads. Ads served based on the context they appear in (eg, ads for financial services on the WSJ, or ads for diapers on a baby monitor app) do not require any surveillance or knowledge of the person they're going to be seen by in order to function.
From what I can tell, this ad was not targeted in the least: it just went out to everyone with an iPhone.
(That doesn't make it good, it just means that it doesn't specifically violate Apple's commitment to privacy.)
There was a (brief) period when website advertisements were simple, first party hosted image files. IIRC, the first text ads on metafilter (2001 ?) were just strings in the same HTML file.
You may like or dislike these things but they were not a privacy concern.
The reason that they so often seem so is because of the massive surveillance enabling targeted ads. Ads served based on the context they appear in (eg, ads for financial services on the WSJ, or ads for diapers on a baby monitor app) do not require any surveillance or knowledge of the person they're going to be seen by in order to function.
From what I can tell, this ad was not targeted in the least: it just went out to everyone with an iPhone.
(That doesn't make it good, it just means that it doesn't specifically violate Apple's commitment to privacy.)