These Targeted Internet Ads are Getting a Little Too Personal

Recently featured on the right side of my myspace's inbox page as a sponsored link:

Men's Beard Trimmer

With cleaning brush & shaping comb
Micro-precision grooming for $9.99

Goddammit, don't tell me how to live my life, Internet! If I want to look like a homeless Vietnam vet or a rescued hiker lost for weeks in the forest, then I damn well will.

I guess this might also be a sign I talk about beards too much, because, not really knowing how these things work, I guess there's some tracking software on myspace and my browser that keys into certain words and then provides ad links based on that word(s). In my case, it was "beard."

For example, beneath the trimmer link was this inexplicable nonsense:

Find Beard MSN

" I Can't Believe I Found his MSN
Address! It was as Easy as 123."K.J

Find Beard? Like Beard is a person? And this Beard has an MSN address?

Maybe I'm a little too paranoid about intrusion of my privacy in the form of marketing that caters to my tastes. Because "Find Beard"...that's pretty fucking amateur. That being said, take note. Shit like this is only going to get creepier and more intrusive in the guise of helping you, the global consumer, to make choices and know about all the wonderful products that will make it possible to live in a permanent, solipsistic bubble, with superficial interests and lifestyle labels plastered to its exterior like Nascar sponsorships.

Sorry, I've been taking a lot of medicine for this flu.

Just, goddammit computer, don't step on my beard.