The solution here is obviously open-source and protocol based mediums. Proprietary social networks exist to extract data and sell ads. But let's ignore that and give politicians more power to regulate internet services as a whole. I'm sure the German government would love that.
Yes, there are laws restricting how and when data can be processed.
That someone has the ability to do something bad does not mean they cannot be restricted from doing it by the law.
That's exactly what the legislation constrains - Zuck's select * from where user_id = 'technofiend' returns 3 rows not hundreds or thousands, or zero if I've opted out of data collection entirely.
You can't simply throw your hands up and say "Well Facebook has a billion users too bad so sad if they collect data you don't like" because there are in fact plenty of laws elsewhere that restrict their activity. It's entirely possibly to tell them to keep their grubby hands of my bits and their cookies out of my browser. And yes if that means I have to pay for sites I use for free now, so be it. I can't help but think that'll drive content towards quality anyway.
People care enough about privacy to complain about it but not enough to do anything. I don't have much sympathy for them.
Maybe the real problem here is that people talk about "your data". There's no "your data" in a shadow profile of you. There's data about you. I have a feeling that talking about the data as if it belonged to the person it refers to makes people reach weird conclusions.
I'm having problems with articulating clear examples, but I don't like the very concept of ownership of facts - whether they're algorithms or phone<->name associations.
Amazon knows a great deal about my buying habits but that makes complete sense. Facebook knowing what articles I read from the Globe and Mail and the CBC is something else.
That this sort of restriction is largely missing from US data laws is one reason we see so much fuss about data centre locations and 'safe harbour' provisions.
Or as so many others have called out in the thread - you get legislative relief.