To me this sounds like an opinion that would be common in the US, mostly because of where the trust and fears seem to be (private companies versus government).
I think everybody (private companies, government, individuals) will try to influence and will affect your personal life. What I am worried about is who has the most efficient way to influence a lot the average person - because that entity can control on long term a lot more.
My impression is that in the European Union - due partially to a complex system - is harder for any particular actor to do much on its own (even the example with Denmark secret service asking NSA for data about citizens - I guess it is harder for them to do that rather than just get directly the data).
So what I am afraid is focused and efficient entities having the data, hence I am more afraid of private companies (which are focused and sometimes efficient) rather than governments.
Can we please argue on the thing being discussed rather than where it is common?
Are you saying influencing life through ads and putting me in jail have similar effect on me? If you combine all laws of my country I am pretty sure I would have broken few unintentionally. If government wants to just put me in jail they could retroactively find any of my past instance if they have the data. This is not some theoretical thing, but something the thing that happens with political dissidents all the time.
The "thing being discussed" is the efficacy of privacy laws. They work well, and the fact that you haven't been put on trial for your 'crimes' yet is tacit evidence.
In the real world, both corporations and governments are your enemy. You're mistakenly looking at it as a relativist comparison; the people influencing your life through advertising work with the people who put you in jail. They aggregate and sell data to Palantir which is used by dozens of well-meaning intelligence agencies to scrutinize their citizens. They threaten Apple and Google unless they turn over personally-identifying data and account details. Some of them even demand that corporate data is stored on state-owned servers.
So, what you actually want is to use the power of the "putting me in jail" people against your oppressors. If the law says that companies can't collect data unconditionally, then neither the corporation or the state can justly implicate you.
But everything is relativist. There is and can't be any absolute privacy. We need to find the biggest gain we can have in privacy with minimal impact to economy. And making laws for online ads is the worst in terms of ROI. It impacts economy and millions of people could work because of ads and it offers very low benefit.
> you haven't been put on trial for your 'crimes' yet
I know someone who has been put to trial.
> They aggregate and sell data to Palantir
See here we are going to speculative domain. If there are companies who I trust not to do that, it would be big tech not because they are good, but because they know the value of data and are the ones which can extract highest value. And in any case it would require breaking TOS as companies list out their partners. And if we are entering illegal, anyways laws won't help with this.
I think everybody (private companies, government, individuals) will try to influence and will affect your personal life. What I am worried about is who has the most efficient way to influence a lot the average person - because that entity can control on long term a lot more.
My impression is that in the European Union - due partially to a complex system - is harder for any particular actor to do much on its own (even the example with Denmark secret service asking NSA for data about citizens - I guess it is harder for them to do that rather than just get directly the data).
So what I am afraid is focused and efficient entities having the data, hence I am more afraid of private companies (which are focused and sometimes efficient) rather than governments.