> is a problem with the government, not any tech company. You almost certainly live in a western style democracy, and so you possess mechanisms to modify the government behavior (if you don't, I suggest moving)
Yeah, I'll get right on voting for the candidate that has "limit the tracking of data by internet companies" as one of their issues. I mean, come on. This is a niche issue that has little public awareness. To suggest "Oh, you just need to vote better" is simply laughable. I (and I'm guessing most people) don't live in a government where you can simply vote in new laws or regulations, we vote for candidates and whether or not those candidates care about privacy rights is a crap shoot. Most people don't have a cursory understanding of how data tracking works.
This is a google problem. They don't have regulations pushing them to track their users in a way that makes their data easily accessible and consumable by government agencies. There aren't regulations out there forcing it. This is made evident by Apple's run ins with the FBI because their encryption wasn't crackable.
And frankly, while this is an issue, there are so many other issues I care about politically that a candidate running on the "limit google tracking" platform wouldn't have enough to win my vote. It's important, but so are so many other issues of the day.
> You've not suggested a workable alternative business model that, on balance, provides more net good.
More net good? Or more profit for google? These are not the same things.
I did, in fact, suggest an alternative business model, ads without tracking. One that was particularly popular throughout the internet right up until google took things over with doubleclick.
Again, this is not a business model that will be as profitable, but you are conflating "good" with "profit".
And as a counter example, duck duck go appears to be doing fine even though they aren't tracking users like crazy.