> Silently gathering data about a person's activities without their knowledge is antithetical to human dignity and people's freedom. It's no accident that no tracking is done in the open or asks for permission.
I disagree. Tracking happens very much all the time, everywhere. People know habits of those they're interested in at work, be that their boss or clients, for the benefit of their career. That's tracking. Corner shops track their customers' routine. We call their attention "charm", "nice touch", that make them superior to the big boxes. The subjects in both case certainly aren't aware and it's hard to claim it's antithetical to human dignity and people's freedom.
You may argue that Google do it at scale, and that make them vile, so at which scale does tracking become a problem? Is my little website free to do so? If not, what is different than a little shop with a book that details frequent customers' name, address, birthday, etc.?
Tracking isn't the issue. Using the data against the will or to do harm to people is the issue that needs to be addressed.