I think this is a good analogy. I was involved with indie bands in the 90s and startups now (disclosure: I work on Disconnect, a Ghostery alternative) and have been saying how much the scenes are alike.
But the band - I mean, startup - has to take some responsibility. In this case, I think they have to take a lot of the responsibility. When you sell your startup to a company called Better Advertising (Evidon's name before switching), can you really be surprised when the company starts selling your users' data to advertisers?