Comment by thu2111

What I mean is that offline businesses have been running experiments to see what works forever. They run a billboard campaign in city X and run a slightly different one in city T to compare the results. They count customers as they come through the door. They issue loyalty cards that people sign up for in their millions, making a special effort to share data with giant supermarkets because they're (effectively) given a share of the resulting revenue increase.

Nobody cares or talks about any of these things. But when Google does the online equivalents, it's suddenly the next coming of Hitler (literally, look at the comment I replied to above!).

This isn't really proportionate, it doesn't make sense, and it's quite offensive to people who work or used to work at these firms.