https://epic.org/privacy/white_house_consumer_privacy_.html Note. I don't know how i feel about EPIC so buyer beware. Yet sounds interesting.
https://slate.com/technology/2018/04/why-arent-privacy-group...
your critic is more a matter of focus than agenda.
EFF is more focused on protocols and crypto and software per se. while usability, end user abuse etc is not high on it's priorities.
Serious question.
I don't know how you draw the line between what would have to be opt-in and what would have to be opt-out.
The underlying issue is that companies are shipping products that do a bunch of extra shit that nobody expects or can predict.
The solution is for companies to be transparent and open about what their products are actually doing, and then users can decide for themselves if they want to use them or not.
Yes, I want to opt-in explicitly, even for heart rate when I buy Fitbit. The default should be do not track, do not do anything without explicit permission from user. This includes even harmless features and core features of a product (like heart rate monitor for fitbit).
This wouldn't be the case if companies played nice. We are well past that now. We can't believe pretty much any company online, not to sell data, mess with their users' privacy etc.
Explicitly opting in is a minor inconvenience compared to destroying everyone's privacy.
Defaults matter. So when you want to use everyone's data, and you make it opt in, you only get a little bit of everyone's data, whereas if you make it opt out, you get most everyone's data. And unfortunately, legal regulation is the only way we can override tech companies desire to default to the best answer for them.