I guess OP implies more like a structural evil, as a whole, and the broader effects on society. I have some experience with adtech, and I know a significant pa

I guess OP implies more like a structural evil, as a whole, and the broader effects on society. I have some experience with adtech, and I know a significant part of it is exploiting low-education low-income people to spend money with manipulative ads. The people who actively exploit are the advertisers, and they use technology provided by ad-tech who make sure that the amount of money being extracted out of people is as large as possible. The way to achieve this is to get as close as possible to users, which means breaking boundaries of what is basically a human right to privacy. There's no one to blame, but the overall effect of the technology has some significant side-effects, which need to be curtailed, as those low-educated people don't know how they are being played.