How do you define benefits? Sacrifice one's privacy without his permission to make ten of others' life easier, would you call it beneficial? If so, let's rob the wealthy to aid the poor.
They can reduce the risks to a certain level if users were told how they are going to use the data and why before using it. Are they going to do that? No, because that increases the cost, which means less profit, which means shareholders won't agree.
My point was : it is easy to throw a general sentence to make things look obvious and simple, but it doesn't really help the conversation. At some point, claims must be backed by data and methods.
They can reduce the risks to a certain level if users were told how they are going to use the data and why before using it. Are they going to do that? No, because that increases the cost, which means less profit, which means shareholders won't agree.
So there comes law.