This is why self regulation doesn't work. People posture endlessly and when given half a chance with any sort of power and real stakes, ethics gives way and we

This is why self regulation doesn't work. People posture endlessly and when given half a chance with any sort of power and real stakes, ethics gives way and we are left with apologism, hand waving, denial and rationalization. This is easy to fix. Follow the money and change the incentives. And the fix will allow software folks to continue to posture endlessly as they will not have the power to make a decision. 1. Ban micro targeting by advertisers, only contextual text and location can be used. 2. Platforms like Facebook, Google and their chain of contractors, partners etc cannot offer micro targeting. 3. Ban data aggregation with heavy penalties and imprisonment for companies, marketing individuals and their agencies who try this. This will solve these problems in a jiffy. That removes the incentive for stalking people 24/7, collecting tons of data and making correlation and inferences. The thing is so many people, especially governments and political players, crave this power that it cannot be done anymore, that's why building surveillance infrastructure is a bad idea. It will always be abused and why the individual ethics of the engineers and society at large becomes critical but we have already failed that test.