Invasive advertising is a kind of propaganda - information that is intended to manipulate people. Bruce Schneier said that surveillance was the business model of the internet, but perhaps more precisely, propaganda is the business model of the internet. At least the user facing part of it.
Put simply, we have come to accept that it is okay for businesses to manipulate people, so it should not come as much of a surprise that other entities will use that same well-oiled machinery for their own purposes.
I think it's easier and more correct to view it the other way round: propaganda is a form of advertising. Specifically it's political advertising which intends to bring you round to some viewpoint.
Viewed this way it's much easier to see the evils that advertising can and does propagate.
Isn't it easier to see the evil parts of advertising if one calls it a form of propaganda than the other way around?
In my opinion: using the first sentence of the wikipedia articles for advertising and propaganda, I would argue that advertising is a sub-set of propaganda:
Propaganda is information that is used primarily to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be presenting facts selectively to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.
Advertising is a marketing communication that employs an openly sponsored, non-personal message to promote or sell a product, service or idea.
In my view any form of political advertising is in fact propaganda. If it sells ideas and world views as a prepackaged product, it's an attempt at indoctrination, and thus propaganda.
> or using loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is presented.
All commercials do this. Just think of Apple ads...
Why is it that advertising is (in your opinion) only openly sponsored and non-personal? I receive plenty of targeted, personal messages which I consider advertising, from mail to abandoned cart notifications. And there are definitely adverts online which do not make the sponsored aspect clear.
And the 3rd sentence on that page is: "It differs from personal selling in that the message is non-personal, i.e., not directed to a particular individual."
I would probably say that it is still advertising if it is using some form of automated targeting, such as: buying a list of people who just got kids and sending them a letter with their name printed on it.
But If someone stopped me on the street and asked if I have heard about the latest pyramid scheme, I would not call advertising but rather "personal selling"
The second paragraph's is irrelevant - it doesn't matter what we consider okay for businesses, these aren't businesses and they just need access to communication. Propaganda was already being used - it just took a few decades for them to catch on and refine their methods, ones which are separate from advertising but similiar.
If a purpose of the discussion is to understand a problem and consider what we can do to fix it, then it is relevant. Invasive advertising has acclimated us, legitimized and provided a vast mechanism for user manipulation. And you are correct there are other mechanisms and methods.
Put simply, we have come to accept that it is okay for businesses to manipulate people, so it should not come as much of a surprise that other entities will use that same well-oiled machinery for their own purposes.