1. They have consent, it's called the terms of service.

For eBay and Amazon, I consider that consent to be a malicious term, especially for these websites which are near monopolies. Even though I hit "agree" to their attempt to collect data, I still will instruct my devices to not actually give certain data to them, and instruct my devices to not display ads that are targeted based on cross-business shared data.

And of course there are the million other sites you don't need to agree to any ToS to use.

I mostly agree with you on sites with no ToS or sites where you're not a registered user.

I think that the concept that a ToS is considered by you to be malicious, yet you agree with it anyway in order to receive services is where the problem lies. That seems intentionally deceptive to me. If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site?

> If you disagree with the ToS why still use the site?

Because I still need to buy stuff?

eBay is a monopoly in online auctions and secondhand goods from non-local locations. I don't have a choice. This isn't 1980 where you probably had a lot of options for auctions that didn't track your user data. Those auctions are largely gone.

Amazon is a near monopoly in e-commerce in that there are lots of things I buy that are more or less only available on Amazon, or perhaps Walmart which also a similarly malicious ToS.

Either way, I actually buy stuff from these websites. Probably upwards of $10K in purchases per year, at least. It makes zero sense for them to kick me off for thwarting their user tracking and data sharing attempts. It would be a lose-lose for them to do that.

There are a lot of things a ToS can reasonably require, for example, setting limits on how much you are allowed to use the service, and limits on how you may use data obtained in the course of using the service. I respect those. But when it comes to how my data is shared externally with other companies, I think it crosses the line for a ToS to require that of a user to use the service. In fact, I think there should be legislation requiring it to be a clear opt-in on part of the user, and I would go so far as to say that a default opt-in setting should be illegal.

> It makes zero sense for them to kick me off for thwarting their user tracking and data sharing attempts. It would be a lose-lose for them to do that

Sure, but presumably that should be their decision as the service provider, not yours.

And it is. If Amazon kicks me off I'll be shopping at Walmart tomorrow.

Also, note that a big part of this is also that the ToS was not bilaterally negotiated. They, as a near-monopoly, presented a ToS that they were not willing to negotiate with, and required agreeing to it to provide service.

In much of the contract world, both parties negotiate terms before signing -- for example, investor term sheets, contractor work, business partnerships. In situations like that where I have a voice, and have a fair share of negotiating space with an agreement before signing, I am normally very respectful of what I agreed to, but if I was not offered that opportunity, to hell with it, I will go by my idea of what I think is right, and they can kick me off if they want to and lose their $10K/year in revenue. Most of the time, they'd probably rather take the $10K than pick a fight over ad blockers.

The terms of service for a web page the user just visited? They haven't even seen anything to suggest that the ToS exists at that point -- they haven't consented to anything.