America's consumer watchdog drops leash on proposed data broker crackdown

I wouldn't say this qualifies as regulatory capture. Regulatory capture is when an industry embraces the creation of regulations, as it cements the incumbents' position, raises the barriers to entry for new competitors, and precludes deeper regulation or longstanding causes of legal action. The "Fair" Credit Reporting Act itself is a prime example of regulatory capture.

This is more like the wholesale (continued) destruction of the US governments ability to regulate anything. Effectively abdicating our constitutional form of government - nominally democratic and aimed at protecting natural rights - in favor of unrestrained corporate totalitarianism based around the fallacy of individual consent.

This has nothing to do with regulatory capture, this is libertarian philosophy in action. Essentially the view that government should never be allowed to regulate industry. And the belief that if businesses are ever doing something most view as wrong, a new company will spring up to make money on fixing it so the problem will go away.

No matter how many times that's been shown to be wrong, many people still believe it.

The best part is they argue in support of it with the tautology of "if it's a problem then a business will fix it. And then someone points out all the problems that business has not fixed, their response is 'see well it must not be a problem'". Completely ignoring all of the structural reasons why it doesn't get fixed.

And that how we get this rampant collection of "data brokers", and all of our data being captured and sold by every platform.