While corporations aren't as powerful as the government, they use data for more than "trying to sell you something."
Network effects cause society to coalesce around the same large corporations for social media, online shopping, payment processing, etc to the point that it can be hard to function in society without their services. Once their services are used by virtually everyone, their governance becomes governmental in its impact. On a weekly basis we see programs like the app stores, ad markets, search algorithms, and payment processors enforcing opaque policies that close businesses and end livelihoods, all based on an automated interpretation of the data we share with them.
Network effects cause society to coalesce around the same large corporations for social media, online shopping, payment processing, etc to the point that it can be hard to function in society without their services. Once their services are used by virtually everyone, their governance becomes governmental in its impact. On a weekly basis we see programs like the app stores, ad markets, search algorithms, and payment processors enforcing opaque policies that close businesses and end livelihoods, all based on an automated interpretation of the data we share with them.