This seems like a very strange reading of "express aiming"; instead of those words meaning that a person has done something to 'target', it means that the person did not 'expressly avoid'? I am not sure that "expressly aim" has much meaning at all in this reading.
I don't have any horse in this race, though I know the EFF is very popular on HN, and that many people here are also against data collection.
I guess it's just a coincidence that the California Shopify meetup groups are abandoned without notice?