That's sort of irrelevant, the creepy part is that the behavioural prediction models exist at all, and are controlled by an entity whose only responsibility or duty is to generate profit
It's not 'sort of irrelevant'. The entire thesis of many arguments against Google, and specifically the comment you made above, was that they distribute your personal information to advertisers and other corporate entities. That's just not true.
Frankly, if they did that, they wouldn't make very much money. They can demand money from advertisers because they have an information advantage over everyone else. That information advantage gives them an incentive to protect your personal information. After all, if they leaked the information a competitor could use it to formulate competitive advertising profiles, which would drive down earnings.
Edit:
I wanted to add a few more thoughts since I let it spin around in my mind a bit. I think if you followed the line of argument regarding Google's profit motive as a corporation, you could reach the conclusion that their users' privacy(that is, the distribution of their private information) is a prerogative of theirs to protect. Their viability as a corporation depends on their profiles being the most accurate, and on being under their sole ownership. As such, they are driven to protect them.
I would conjecture that the profit motive for their need to protect their information has led to their relatively robust consumer protection ratings by groups like the EFF[0].
So long as we live in an economy based on selling things, people are going to try to sell you things. They're going to do it as effectively as they can.
Advertisers have been thinking about demographics since there's been advertising. Advertisers' needs have dictated the TV shows that do and don't see the light of day for half a century. Behavior prediction models have been around for decades, now they're just better.
I definitely see why this is potentially creepy to some, but I think that we should also be objective and look at the track record of those companies in question.
Googles business model isn't based on doing something malicious like selling your private data to mexican drug lords, neither does Apple, Microsoft or Facebook.
The real threat is some kind of data loss (where Google has a pretty good track record) and secret wiretapping warrants issued by secret courts based on secret laws. (but even there it's not in Googles interest and they are forced by the state to comply)
I wasn't making any broader point; I just didn't like the way you engaged with the grandparent here. We need to stop reinforcing the pattern that "I don't like X => we have to do Y to try and stop X". You could just as well have engaged more constructively, asking whether they thought there was any Y that might be worth looking at.
