To be clear that’s a list of known ad networks who have been a round for a while, not an endorsement of them.
That said, ad networks are the people profiling the web. That’s their job. It’s what they do. Obviously you want to work with companies who err on the ethical side of that line but privacy concerns come up because they should – we should all be watching the people with the keys to the internet’s data and by in large that’s the networks.
You also see a lot of critique because of the nature of networks. Those included and turning a profit are positive but people who don’t find results, or who don’t fit the networks internal [and often highly subjective] criteria aren’t so happy about being denied or removed.
CJ is one of the leading affiliate networks if you take that approach. They’ve got a nice list of advertisers but you’ll usually want to pair up other networks to cover a full sector [i.e. linkshare may have another top brand to offer choice of vendors].