It is, indeed, inconvenient to consider the rights of the users when building a service, especially when they aren't the ones who pay you for it. Still, I'm not sure it's such a bad idea.
And dozens of emails about updated terms. Not to mention that some sites now require a non-EU proxy.
All to solve a problem that was 100% solved a decade ago with a simple adblock. I can't imagine a more effective anti-EU campaign than these Internet laws.
I have also opted out of Foursquare (and Facebook, and many other services of very dubious value) by not using it. The main obstacle that stops Foursquare from selling my location history is not having anything to sell.
If, on the other hand, that opting out requires clicking through a slew of warnings every time I visit a website, I'd rather see my browsing history sold to advertisers. Frankly, I'd like an EU_CITIZEN_WHO_DOES_NOT_CARE browser header to opt out of all these protections.
Governments are just as out of touch, judging by a UK cyber-security report that the BBC reported on a few months ago, or by the way Zuckerberg and the US Congress interacted.
Thus, we get dumb laws by politicians so they can point to what they have done for the average user that has no understanding of how any of the internet works. The web of today for me has really just turned into a problem of critical mass. For example, Google Eternal September[1], early adopters (nerds) have been going through this problem on the internet for awhile, and I honestly feel like it's never going to get better for us.
C'est la vie.
(Flawed analogy, because the website malicious JavaScript analogy would be, what, also having to assume their nerves haven’t been spliced with wires leading to a remote control?)