[squarefoot]

> This is what is extremely strange to me (by principle). When the government does it, it seems to make many more headlines and people are outraged, but when a company does it, there is far more acceptance.

Exactly, and all it needs to keep people calm is to create a puppet advertising company that does its job and covertly pass the data to govt organizations, or infiltrate an established one. Problem is that personal data mining has become vital for our modern toxic economy, so I don't see how the practice could go away anytime soon, especially when those making the laws and those taking advantage from it are essentially the same entities.