> The only way to crack down on this is to prevent apps sending any data at all and to minimise the use of proprietary software.
You're asking for legislative controls which, at the end of the day, can still be bypassed either flat out illegally or via legal grey areas. At best it's remedied after the act or prevents only the most obvious misuse. When you give politicians the mandate to control something often they're too technologically/process incompetent to get it right and to make sure the solution is in your interest.
You want to abate this practice? Exit social media (...and life will improve), use RSS for mass information consumption (I've been doing it for ~10 years now - I can pour through what would normally be a days sifting/reading in 15 minutes while taking the first dump of the day) and use a browser with extensions that give you more fine grained control i.e. Firefox with NoScript.
You're asking for legislative controls which, at the end of the day, can still be bypassed either flat out illegally or via legal grey areas. At best it's remedied after the act or prevents only the most obvious misuse. When you give politicians the mandate to control something often they're too technologically/process incompetent to get it right and to make sure the solution is in your interest.
You want to abate this practice? Exit social media (...and life will improve), use RSS for mass information consumption (I've been doing it for ~10 years now - I can pour through what would normally be a days sifting/reading in 15 minutes while taking the first dump of the day) and use a browser with extensions that give you more fine grained control i.e. Firefox with NoScript.
Be in control of your world.