It's not just targeted ads. We see a new data breaches every week that leaks customer data and is used in identity theft that causes actual, quantifiable damages to users. The entire internet, and increasingly physical goods in our homes, has become the equivalent of a ghetto where every single person has to have bars on their doors and look over their shoulders constantly to avoid having shit stolen from them or their privacy violated.
The GDPR didn't arise out of some feeling that companies we're making too much money. It arose out of the fact that the industry refused to self regulate. They were given years to do this and the standard operating procedure for security around data right now is to lol because who cares if you have a breach, that's a problem for the people you harvested data from, not you.
The bad side effects from this data harvesting are called negative externalities. A similar set of negative externalities is pollution.
Do you think it's immoral for regulations to make certain business model that rely on dumping poison into the water or air unprofitable, just because those companies could have made some money if only they could do what they liked regardless of the harm to others?
