This is similar to the incredibly common meme that Instagram and other social media apps are secretly using the microphone to spy on you for advertising purposes.
Most people are just stupid, nothing new here.
Most people are just stupid, nothing new here.
It's possible to do business without scanning your customer's faces, tracing their contacts, selling details of their transactions to aggregators, etc ... where does the line get drawn?
And that doesn't even address data that is "accidentally" collected.
This is the same phenomenon as driving with other people and suddenly asking out loud "Hey let's find such or such type of car". Whatever the make (within reason), you'll probably start finding out a bunch of them. That's because you start paying attention, of course, not because there's suddenly a surge of people driving them at the exact time you're looking for them.
If someone could come up with proof of this, they'd probably be set for life in one way or another. Perhaps they could monetize the information by collaborating with short-sellers, or simply kickstart a career using the massive media attention.