I helped build adtech's tracking tools. They're on government sites now

The Counter The advertising industry learned to measure the moments before you decide. Now their tools are learning to govern. It was my first week at a new job. The boss wanted me close. His two-story office was glass on two sides. One side looked out on the parking lot. The other looked in on us. From his office, we were figures behind glass, visible by default. The wall behind him had brand logos. The fourth wall was hung with rare skateboards: decks too valuable to ride, mounted in a grid. Scrappy things made beautiful by being taken out of circulation. He faced them every day. It was all new to me. I was here because I knew how to design systems to track things that move. My advertising skills were nominal, and my new cohort spoke the lingo fluently, like people who had invented it.

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