> Ofcourse Google and Facebook can stop being robotic slaves to advertising revenue and go the Wikipedia route. But that would be like expecting the big banks and rating agencies to do what was right at the peak of the subprime crisis

The big companies are not the scariest parties. While I don't like what they are doing, Google, etc, kind of protect my data. What worries me most is what the government does with my data. They can do almost anything they want, track my every movement, see what I like and save it forever. While Google does the same, they need to protect that very careful because if this data is misused (and it gets publicized), they could lose billions (which they could not afford to do). If a government agency screws up, there is an "investigation", and, after a few weeks/months the media stops reporting.

I'm not saying what either party does is good, but Google and Facebook are not as worrying to me as a government who will only use the data in my best interest and has a perfect track record of safeguarding my data.