The TV-style bullshit that just leaps for your eyes and blares at you is insufferable; but at least it only watches you at the level of granularity provided by the Neilson lab rats.
Not so much, anymore. With the addressable digital boxes that the TV providers use, there is just as much profiling done when you watch TV, too. Your TV provider knows what you watch, how you watch it, and when you watch it. I think it can, however, be gamed to work to our advantage:
If enough people time-shift live TV by 15-20 minutes per hour (the typical amount of advertising) and skip past all the ads, at least on networks where it isn't disabled, that sends a message that we don't want ads. Or, they'll disable skipping ads on all channels. If enough of us rent on-demand movies like Gia and skip to all of the lesbian scenes, that sends a message that we want more lesbian scenes.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff." -- Dave Enyeart