I come at this from an Historian background, and therefore a much Bigger Picture viewpoint as well. I look at this both across the entire world, and throughout the history of human kind, as well as paying attention where I can, to the nature of both technology development, and of government.
Several things.
People have been trying to use what they learn from each other to gain personal advantages, since forever. People have been lying about their motivations as far back as we have records. That lying is PART of the overall procedure of “trying to use what they learn.”
People have invented objects, tools, concepts, forms of communication, lying and other deceptive behaviors, again, for as fare back as we can tell.
People have taken advantage of other peoples inventions, and used them to do things that the inventors never intended, again, for as far back as we have been able to see.
Observation: being upset about something, isn’t an accomplishment, and it isn’t directly useful. Being angry that merchants are usually lying when they claim to be acting entirely with their customers comfort and delight in mind, is one of the least useful expenditures of energy, because that behavior DOES go back to the beginning of human communication. Where the usefulness of the recognition of this common human behavior ceases, is at the point where the person learns to ignore the claimed intentions of the vendor, and makes their purchasing decision based entirely on their own best interests. Going the extra step, and investing time and stomach lining health on any form of fist-shaking about it, is self-destructive.
No matter what you decide to push for or do, someone else somewhere WILL find a way to misuse the change or action, to do something you don’t like. Pass a law preventing anyone from seeing your personal data sounds fine, until you realize that that means that “bad guys” will use it to make all prosecutable evidence of their evil deeds, off limits to law enforcement. And you certainly aren’t going to find any way to outlaw human nature.
For data gathering to be specifically dangerous, it has to be targeted, and the people gathering it have to be willing to spend real wealth to utilize it. Someone could already be using Garbage Trucks to gather even MORE details about every person here, if they were willing to spend the time and money and human resources required to process and sift through everything each person throws away every day.
the same thing is true of the grocery store data, and the driving habits data. The COST of turning it into a tool of oppression is so high, it’s not likely to be worth worrying about.