This is egregious—and potentially illegal—enough that I suspect it's unintentional (bug, bad UX, misconfiguration, etc), but given how accustomed all of us are

This is egregious—and potentially illegal—enough that I suspect it's unintentional (bug, bad UX, misconfiguration, etc), but given how accustomed all of us are to the obnoxious, grubby tactics favored by tech companies, I'm not remotely surprised that the immediate assumption is that it was an intentional, malicious decision. That's the problem with the selfish, user-hostile approach that a lot of businesses seem to think is acceptable. Short-term, maybe it works, but it breeds a deep cynicism and suspicion that no company should want in its customers. When things go wrong—and they will—you will not be given any benefit of the doubt, nor will you deserve it.