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>These companies have been making their position on all of this extremely well understood over the last freaking decade

I don't think that's fair. These systems are extremely complex. I work in the user privacy space for a company you've heard of, and I can't say that people don't care. I think they don't understand. They don't understand that these companies have PhD educated ML data scientist getting paid outrageous salaries mine your behavior and influence it. I will never, ever blame the user for being exploited. I will always blame the people who continue to work on these systems, because these systems are evil.

The sad thing about this technology is that it's routinely used, as enumerated in this article, to a completely worthless end. Cocaine should not be illegal anywhere, nor should surveillance stings be set up to entrap people.