Personally, I found the link between sexual assault and tracking to be expected: they're the two scenarios in which consent even gets mentioned or discussed in daily life. When it comes to sex, it's critical and mentioned all the time in media and internet posts; in tracking, it's in the forms of "I consent" buttons on every other badly designed web page. In how many other places will you find a consent form? Medical procedures, perhaps?

Obviously, Google's data hunger is worlds less harmful than sexual assault, but I think the difference in how consent is treated is actually relevant for the discussion.

When it comes to sex, it has taken many decades (or even centuries) of hard work, but at this point society is finally starting to get the message across: you don't have consent if it's not given explicitly. Society is still in the process of getting everyone on the same page here (sadly) but progress is being made.

While compiler data collection isn't as important, the idea that consent means "you haven't tried saying no enough" is completely absurd. This means is no good comparison for consent because every comparison where a normal person deals with consent will make the suggestion opt-out seem horrible. Most actions happening to a person without consent are or should be illegal, with perhaps lawful arrests and the judicial system being the exception.

If we, as a society, really do value explicit consent, we shouldn't mix and match what is and isn't consent based on what serves us. Consent is important in software too, even if some companies or developers don't see it that way.

Google devs especially should know this. People I know have felt a real sense of violation when they found out how intensely Google tracks its users. I've seen people get creeped and grossed out by their phones because they were asked to review a restaurant they were near, realising that Google knew exactly where they were and how long, and that the tracking had gone on for much longer before that. I, myself, felt a little violated when I found out how much data Microsoft's dotnet tool has been sending out after getting "consent" during an automated install and first use, despite knowing the data can't track me down as a person.

The impact may be incomparable, but developers seem to severely underestimate the emotional impact their blatant disregard for other people's privacy can really have just because they don't feel the same way. Perhaps another way the comparison is more apt than it would seem at first glance.