Yeah, abuse of privacy should be the crime, the same way theft is. How exactly the crime is committed shouldn't matter. Companies can have every right to make a compelling argument that what they did was not an abuse of privacy when they are defending themselves in court.

And critically, it is not someone becoming aware of private information that is the abuse of privacy, it is exploiting that private information which is the abuse. There may be countless legitimate technical reasons you need to collect data, but there can not possibly be a technical justification for selling it.