zlacker

I'd be very surprised if all those problems were just theoretical even for you. Insurance companies are already using info from data brokers (https://www.propublica.org/article/health-insurers-are-vacuu...), employers are using it in employment screening (illegally) and data brokers have already been fined because of it (https://www.engage.hoganlovells.com/knowledgeservices/news/f...), it's used to set individualized prices online and offline (https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamtanner/2014/03/26/different...). Data brokers are already selling lists of people who have visited abortion clinics. (https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7vzjb/location-data-abortio...)

Companies are using every scrap of data they can get their hands on to take more of our money and they want more. The government is buying up data they can't legally collect directly. It's pretty likely that you've already experienced real world consequences of the data taken from your online activities. (https://epic.org/issues/consumer-privacy/data-brokers/)

They tell us that all the tracking we're subjected to is just about ads, but the data being collected is used all over the place offline. What we really need is privacy regulation with real teeth, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon because it's making companies tons of money. There's a multi-billion dollar a year industry around the buying and selling of the our data for a reason.