Yeah. I guess you could say that the focus shifted from Windows the OS being the product to the user also becoming the product. Of course, the users never signed up for this.

I'm not sure how to prevent these kind of shenanigans, but it simply comes back to sweet adtech dollars I think. The industry is so huge and pervasive now, that regulating it back into submission is going to be very difficult. 10 years ago, regulation could've been passed that simply prevented adtech from ever becoming as normalized and intrusive as it is these days. Doing it now will cause a massive hit to the valuation of the industry, and these kind of moves tend to be unpopular. Who is going to pull off a campaign that erases hundreds of billions of dollars from the US stock market (and thus people's pensions)?