So Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith is about to testify before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust regarding Google’s merger with Doubleclick.

I’m quite puzzled by one part of his testimony:

This country doesn’t permit a phone company to listen to what you say and use that information to target ads. The computer industry doesn’t permit a software company to record what you type and use that information to target ads. Yet with this merger, Google seeks to record almost everything you see and do on the Internet and use that information to target ads.

I really don’t get the sentence about recording personal information to influence ad targeting. Isn’t Microsoft doing the exact same thing with their AdCenter program? I mean, Adcenter’s specificity is that it uses demographic data to fine-tune targeting, such as sex, age, or income. If they’re not recording information about their users, where are they getting their demographic data from?

Sorry, Brad, but I don’t get it?