Sure but the stalker fantasy was targeting the author specifically and made no mention of the people actually doing the thing.

Sure, the stalker fantasy might be a bit on the nose. Having someone follow you around in a 'physical' sense seems kinda creepy.

But; there is now the robot equivalent of a PI stalker in your browser. It's not a person, but it's still reporting all your browser activity. Except for the 'physical human', that seems like a pretty similar analogy, right? Because for me, it's equally creepy.

You can’t seriously consider an actual human being following you around to be the same as advertising tracking. Those aren’t the same and Google isn’t doing it to “prove a point”. The fantasy was clearly about intimidation in the real world of a real person.

You should really re-read the article. It does not support the change to Chrome or the tracking that Google does.