Internet privacy it is a farce and companies are using the fear for profit. In reality the only thing you can do is decide in which company do you trust.
First thing you choose is the ISP, we all know that they are all scummy and get caught every year selling information, throttling services, lying, etc.
Then, if you want to be safe from your ISP you have to get a VPN and it is the same old story again. Even if you manage to never send or receive a bit outside the VPN you have to trust they are not loging everything and selling it.
It is a never ending story, because after that you have to trust the OS, the hardware manufacturers of each piece of your phone/pc, the modem, the router, the apps, and if you are talking with someone make it double because you have to trust all the same things from the one receiving the message.
People talks about huawei spying for the CPP like if things like PRISM doesn't exist. Every country has some kind of mass surveillance program and there is nothing we can do about it. If I were american I would prefer being spy by the Chinese that can't get me extradited.

Almost every content provider online tries to access some of your personal info, whether it's to keep itself afloat, improve functionality, or create profits. In 2014, Google made [89.4%] (https://revenuesandprofits.com/how-google-makes-money/) of its profits from advertising, all of which attempts to target users with their interests (though Google does allow this to be disabled).

What do you do to try and protect yourself from data collection? What software, programs, or browser extensions do you trust to protect you, and not just also monitor your activities?

If you don't do any of this, why not? To what extent do you think companies should be allowed to use your data?