Interesting topic for sure and I hold very similar views. I have a book recommendation that might gauge your interest. "Who owns the future" by Jaron Lanier.

Interesting topic for sure and I hold very similar views. I have a book recommendation that might gauge your interest. "Who owns the future" by Jaron Lanier. He touches on many topics throughout the book and has several talks on Youtube including ones at Microsoft research. Touches on Siren Servers which collate big data and used for not so ethical business practices. Bottom line to answer your last question is yes, yes they are. The invasive spying tools implemented by these companies give them the opportunity to tailor a very targeted marketing campaign that captures and retains people in their business ecosystem. Read the book a while ago so can't cite any particular evidence. Jaron pretty much states who ever has the biggest computer with the most data wins. He saw the birth of big insurance companies implement computing into their business practice which was a game changer. Interested if anyone has an real world scenarios to chime in