Doesn't the tax usually come when the consensus about the societal harm carries more weight than the money produced by that harm?
Or at least enough weight to be competitive. Sin taxes have a way of permanently tying the sin (at some reduced level) to the general budget.
I don't think we're there yet. People can get plenty mad at "tech" without connecting the ad-tech dots.
Well, you should try to establish the societal cost of the negative externality and then tax at that level. The idea isn't to destroy the thing but to make it's price reflect its actual cost
Edit: "then cost" => "then tax"
> … why we don’t tax it.
What I don’t understand, is why we don’t tax it. If an industry generates lots of wealth, but has a questionable impact on society, the “f(r)ee market” west’s response has usually been to throw a stiff vice tax on it. It doesn’t make the vice go away, but it puts a governor on its excess and redirects some of the spoils for projects which hopefully are net positive.