The dream is that the market will see this and can solve this problem without need of government intervention. Do you all think that this is feasible? Or do we need more legislation?
While the 1% or 2% of us who care may focus on it, it's extremely unlikely the general populace will really grasp the full ramifications of how these corporations operate. A company is far more likely to lose public support from it's tendency to axe beloved products with regularity than from it's privacy abuse, even though the former is not an inherent societal wrong.
That's really unclear. Users' behavior regarding their own personal data and their claims of privacy expectations seem to deviate pretty significantly.
I once nearly sold a company loyalty card to a guy at a bookstore buying a forearm-length stack of books on "Privacy in the digital age." We got as far as the part where I was asking him for his address and date of birth before he politely declined.
I've heard the issue most pithily described as "People, when asked, will consistently give two answers: (a) they would like more of their personal information kept private, and (b) yes, they would be happy to fill out the deeply-detailed shopper demographic survey in the mall for a Snickers bar."
Moo.
The market would be a lot more concerned about the happiness of cows if cows had the independence and the personal rights to switch farms.
Consumers are not property and have free will. Equating them to cows shows an extremely serious lack of faith in humanity from you.