I think one of the great signals of good ethical behavior is the person who'll refuse to build a thing that they know should not exist, even when offered a great reward if they'll do so.

One thing I've noticed about far too many people in tech is that they all seem to believe that those not in tech are stupid.

Many of them are not stupid. On average, half of them are above average. They're just uninformed and busy with their own lives.

I'm convinced the parents of the US, and in turn broad bipartisan support, could get behind some sane legislation on this stuff if a massive dump like the New York Times one were deanonymized and focused on kids.

It's not their fault they're exploiting a system that allows what they are doing.

They're not good people, but if it weren't this set of people, another would take their place. The world is rife with opportunity for people of low morals.

It is society's fault that we have not explicitly codified what will not be allowed and constructed the right laws and enforcement to ensure that violators are ruinously punished.

Doesn't help at all.

Privacy of varying levels is and has been a functional requirement for smooth working of free society.

Economic disparities make the impact of lower levels of overall societal privacy have a disproportionate negative impact to those on the lower end of the scale.

This is a non-starter for achieving the end result.

There's enough of a delta in both the money paid for online advertising of a target nature and in the better results that yields for the advertisers for them to fund a very rapid turn-over.

There's enough money in it that if they must, they'll be able and willing to buy their way past any unionization issues.

Precisely. And then extend it further. Make advertisers responsible for the behavior of the ad marketplaces, ad tech, ad venues they're paying.

Make their only defense be cooperation in prosecuting the offending party.

The way to criminalize it properly is to create a presumption of criminal activity when an advertiser benefits from ad targeting. Literally anything more than the advertiser choosing what sites to appear on should be made criminal. No other criteria allowed.

They don't care. Until you can show them you know how often they're on Grindr and where their tricks live.

Or that they got a prescription filled. For Valtrex.

What would be helpful -- but that I am adamantly against -- would be tons of data drops, in communities across the nation, of local church leaders and local community leaders.

Civilized societies don't tolerate "vampires" and cannibals walking among them (or lording from on high). They eliminate them. Eventually the people will wake up.