If you have a weakness for furry slippers or something, you might end up with that kind of advertising. It's a very complicated algorithmic decision. There's no one dude who's deciding what ads are going with things, and it's very individualized also. And that's the idea of collecting information is that in theory, you're showing people things that they should want to see or for which they are a good target. So, no, there's no master person.

Right now it is illegal for a service provider to censor or block a site because they don't like it or to privilege someone who pays them extra money. So it's basically a level playing field. I think it was a great victory. It doesn't solve all the problems of our time, but I think we've gotten a much better place.

In fact, the big steps forward for advertising, especially after World War I were when government just began employing the tools of advertising for its own purposes to get people to join the army and other things.

I'm kind of concerned the combined effect, not only Google, all these companies is kind of to make us more boring and that seems the opposite of what the Internet was supposed to be.

The case for industry breakups comes from Thomas Jefferson's idea that occasional revolutions are important to the health of any system. As he wrote in 1787, “a little rebellion every now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical one.

Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.

You know, the only reason net neutrality is controversial is because it's complicated.