There are other problems with the statistics in that example that the author doesn’t mention. One in 73’000’000 seems like a low likely-hood, but there are other factors.

First of all, courts exist to pass judgement on exceptional circumstances amongst a large population. 73’000’000 is pretty close to the population on Great Britain, so we would actually expect this to happen to someone, possibly even 2 or 3 people if they are unlucky.

The other problem is combined probability of everything strange that might happen. If we start using this kind of reasoning in court, every possible unlikely occurrence could be considered a crime. Even if each are extremely unlikely (like one in 10 billion) the chance of any one of them occurring accumulates to also become rather inevitable. One in 10 billion occurrences happen all the time, perhaps just not the particular one you’re thinking of at the moment. So we can’t just say that we will convict on every 1 in 10 billion occurrence that raises criminal suspicions.

With the rise of Facebook, google and Amazon, an enormous amount talent has gone towards finding more profitable ways to sell you crap online.

If you look at what software developers are working on, online advertising not being good enough is the core problem facing our society.