I never click on any ads. If I want something, I’ll go out and look for it. I’d like to think that SDMB members are intelligent enough not to click on any ads. If so, and given that there were ads on the Boards when I signed up that were withdrawn shortly afterward because they were found not to work, then I don’t see an advantage to having the ads. If nobody clicks on them, what’s the use?
I don’t see the link between clicking ads and intelligence. If I see an ad that honestly interests me, I just might click on it. Of course, I probably wouldn’t buy something only because I saw it in an ad, but if I’m posting to a thread on “The Princess Bride” and I see an ad telling me there’s a new collector’s edition with never-before-seen footage coming out on DVD, chances are, I’m going to click on it.
I think that’s a topic for another thread. SUffice it to say that I have a low opinion of advertising tactics.
I’m not excited. What made you think I was excited? I used up all the excitement I’m allotted for the next six months in the Liberal thread. 
I assumed that they were still gathering data on us, a chilling thought but we who Google many times a day see how effective their targeting algorithms are as we skip the first two pages of “Get lowest price on (your search string)!” before we even start to check if they found the right link. It’s not Ask Jeeves, Yahoo, or Altavista quite yet but Google’s getting close.
I find it amusing, though, that the only vendors they’ve matched us with are mailing list companies who pay for the honor. You’d think a beer company would pay more.
I feel like I might be getting whooshed, here, but…
If your first few pages (or even most of the first page) of results in Google are filled with those kinds of results, you probably have CoolWebSearch (nasty piece of spyware/adware/malware/whateverware) on your machine. Aside from the possibility of the tiny little subset of Froogle hits, you shouldn’t be seeing that stuff.
Neither. On the job, where I do the lion’s share of my Googling, what I am searching for is often a consumer product. While fighting with all the discounters so I can get the real data has strengthened and improved my Google-fu I still weekly throw up my hands and say, “Can’t Google automatically put the manufacturer’s site up first so i don’t have to wade through this crap to get their phone number?”