You don’t think BNP bank or AXA insurance play loose with sharing personal data? I had my Peugeot dealer share my purchase information with a third party “extended warranty” vendor without my permission. The vendor called me and sent letters. I never told Peugeot that they could sell my data. I have never given any business permission to call me — yet they do.
Blaming US tech is naïve. European companies have been engaged in non-digital forms of privacy invasion long before Google even existed.
I agree, but people on HN don't seem to care about those as much as US startups. Plus who is worried about car dealerships going under just because they can't pass on your data to some scummy vendor? (Also, some countries have laws close the the GDPR already, where this wouldn't fly.)
Having said that, shunning one car dealership is way easier than trying to stop Facebook or Google slurping your data, even with ad blockers et al.
Blaming US tech is naïve. European companies have been engaged in non-digital forms of privacy invasion long before Google even existed.