> in practice it's like getting angry with individual spammers. It's futile.

Completely agree. In fact, I think the author makes that point later in the article too. What is worth highlighting is the fact that "Educate people about privacy" cannot work. People share things publicly with a lot of different motivations. A potential employer may be interested in where we usually travel to but so would a stalker too.

Instead of trying to discourage people from sharing such info, I think we need to standardize the associated intent with a user's data. Most of us won't be bothered by targeted ads but anyone surely will be about Girls Around Me.