The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries).
The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat.
I could point to many instances of this but the easiest one is the EU commission currently pushing a ban on encryption.
This might be hard to grok, but we can actually be aware of both threats without minimizing the seriousness of either.
Even in good times, in countries with mostly balanced institutions, the government can lock you up in prison and throw away the key if you piss off the wrong people.
On the other hand, I can assure you the only thing Unilever is aspiring to do is get you to buy more toilet bowl cleaner.
And I know the rebuttal will be..."but stupid people (not me of course) will get duped into buying more toilet bowl cleaner than they actually need!"
While that is indeed a huge burden of responsibility to place upon all the people you think are less intelligent than you, I think they will be okay.
As history has shown, the real risk is the government telling me exactly how much toilet bowl cleaner I get to use.
Consider Oreo O's: a breakfast "food" with 11.5 g sugar and 1.3 g protein. Allegedly (according to the Wikipedia article), it was a very successful "food" and had approval from parents.
Now, if you ask someone whether it's appropriate to give your child a pile of sugar or cookies for breakfast, they'll probably tell you no, that's neglect. But somehow people have gotten it into their heads that products from Post or General Mills are acceptable, and weirdly enough now almost half of Americans are obese, and over 10% are diabetic, and how this could have come to be is a total mystery.
How did people come to the conclusion that something with marshmallows or cinnamon sugar swirls in every bite is appropriate to give your children every day? Or cans/bottles of sugar water? Something tells me the decades of endless advertising helped normalize it.
Look at the website for boxtops for education: big bold letters "YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE FOR SCHOOLS" (by giving your child sugar for breakfast). You're making a difference! You're a good person! This kind of propaganda is profoundly evil, and this is without targeting messaging to individuals.
It turns out kids like sugar, incomes have been stagnant for decades, and food deserts exist. What's the cheapest, shelf stable food item on a per-meal basis that your children will voluntarily eat without a fight before work? Sugary cereal. Could any of those factors possibly be the root cause of the market success of sugary cereal? Or is it all because of the evil mind controlling advertisers tricking the stupid people (not you of course)?
The reality is, in a free society, at some point you have to give people responsibility over themselves. I know the impulse of the elite (and rich people on the internet) is always "let me protect you from your own stupidity, I'm smarter!" However, history has shown that impulse is wrong. Preventing businesses and customers with needs from efficiently reaching each other through targeted advertising is in fact a net negative for society.