>though again, I think that the amount these people know and sell to others is less than a small town shopkeeper would know about their patrons 100 years ago b

>though again, I think that the amount these people know and sell to others is less than a small town shopkeeper would know about their patrons 100 years ago but a shopkeeper 100 years ago would have longstanding relationships with those people, they would have to face significant consequences if they used this information to swindle people. They have as much stake in maintaining an honest relationship as the shopper, its a symbiotic relationship. a distributed system of databases owned and traded by conglomerates has none of that