Yeah it's tricky because online consumer tracking is just the evolution of a methodology which has been in place for a long time (like supermarket club cards yo

Yeah it's tricky because online consumer tracking is just the evolution of a methodology which has been in place for a long time (like supermarket club cards you mentioned). Working in marketing gives you a sense of just how pervasive it is, what tricks are at one's disposal, and I think an individual company should be allowed to know how consumers use and value a their products, but being able to sell that information to a third-party is where the line needs to be drawn. I don't know if Congress is the solution (http://thehill.com/policy/technology/215457-big-data-lobbyist-congress-doesnt-want-online-privacy-law http://thehill.com/policy/technology/215457-big-data-lobbyis...), I don't believe any branch of the US government has enough of an understanding with tech issues to pass effective regulation. I hope to be proven wrong though. The most realistic way, in my opinion, to achieve some degree of reform is by encouraging businesses at a grassroots level to just simply not engage in these kinds of practices. That's an even tougher sell to many businesses than getting Congress to pass a law, but I'm heartened by companies like DuckDuckGo who build a product around the idea of "user privacy above all else". I think if that idea becomes popular enough and new businesses become noble enough to stick to their principals on issues of privacy (vs selling out to make $$) we might have an effective solution.