> Why would you expect a company not to pursue profits?

People keep talking about the obligation to shareholders for a company to maximize profits, but there's a wide list of possibilities between not doing that and seeking to actively, wholesale ruin privacy.

I expect the people in companies to take responsibility for their actions instead of pretending that they're beholden to the company's wants.

"We share the risk but the profit is mine" company mindset is no better than medieval thuggery

> Every large company in every industry wants to do this.

And the point of regulation is to stop it and bring balance. Or are you happy with mono-/oligopolies?

I'm fine with regulation to prevent monopolies / duopolies.

In practice, regulation almost never actually does that.

Every major industry is a monopoly or duopoly if you're even a bit generous with the term.

I'm just pointing out there is nothing unique here with tech or data.

And the politics are mostly theater that often makes things more monopolistic, not less.

I read that as saying there's nothing to be done, monopolies are natural, we can't stop the order of things without making everything worse, we must just acquiesce and learn to live with them.

Is that correct? I have a hard time thinking that is true.

I think you're making a mistake confusing the way things are today in terms of market concentration with the way things were in the past. In terms of market concentration in the US at least, things were massively different even 20 years ago.

Adding a link to the Boston Fed report on it from a couple years ago: https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/current-policy-perspe...

> > They've also been trying to extract as much personal info as possible for profit.

> Why would you expect a company not to pursue profits?

And that's how you justify children in cobalt mines I suppose ?

Why do you expect countries to not restrict how companies can pursue profits to protect their citizens?