I've read a lot of these types of articles, which are heavy on hand-wringing and light of suggestions that would actually help things. I think the core problem

I've read a lot of these types of articles, which are heavy on hand-wringing and light of suggestions that would actually help things. I think the core problem is that under our current model of free-market capitalism, there really is no way to constrain what companies like Google and Facebook are doing. You can add on some additional privacy protections like Europe does, but it only goes so far, since the core model of these companies is to make products that people want and give them away in exchange for data. Google and the like will continue to get the data they want because people will keep giving it to them voluntarily. Me personally, I don't want to give up my free gmail, or my free maps app. I was on a trip in Japan and Google Translate works amazingly well. Way better than a few years ago, and also free. Even if I am uncomfortable with some of Google's practices, I'm not going to stop using their products.