I think this is a great analogy. I read quite a bit of the site and it's wildly blown out of proportion and severely lacking in context.

How many phone apps do you think are trying to detect what else is installed on your phone? I was part of an acquisition of a company with a very large mobile user base and our new parent was shocked we weren't trying to passively collect device information like this. They for sure were.

And on the flip side, as others have done well to point out, there are a LOT of legitimate reasons to fingerprint users for anti-fraud/abuse and I am 100% convinced that we're all better off for this.

Maybe thats all this story is about, maybe not, but this article leaves out an incredible amount of complexity.