> The information was not given, it was traded. The consumer's portion of the trade is paid in viewing the advertising.
For something to be traded, there needs to be negotiation between the parties and agreement on the price. Ad hosts usually do not require any agreement from the consumer, they send the web pages anyway (with exceptions). The sole act of requesting the information (HTTP request for an URL) does not imply the requestor agrees with conditions the provider may store somewhere on his web. As far as I know, most ad hosts do not even ask consumers to agree with reading ads, far from requiring they comply. So not really - no trade is happening when I download a web page from an ad hosting website.
For something to be traded, there needs to be negotiation between the parties and agreement on the price. Ad hosts usually do not require any agreement from the consumer, they send the web pages anyway (with exceptions). The sole act of requesting the information (HTTP request for an URL) does not imply the requestor agrees with conditions the provider may store somewhere on his web. As far as I know, most ad hosts do not even ask consumers to agree with reading ads, far from requiring they comply. So not really - no trade is happening when I download a web page from an ad hosting website.