Most airlines do the same shit in Europe, and what makes it worse is that when you buy tickets in groups or with your partner for example, they intentionally place you separate even if there is free space next to one of the seats so that you then have to buy at least one seat to place it next to the other assigned seat. Wizzair actually used to place people together before, but then they intentionally broke it and now charge 40€ for the solution to the problem they created.

I'm happy to hear that regulators are getting involved now.