[1]: FT article, looks like it paywalled, link to google cache: "Brussels to tighten grip on web services in telecoms shake-up" https://goo.gl/MFYaIx

edit: (Bright not as in 'intelligent', but as in 'bright future'.)

I think it is easy to challenge this notion that Corporatism is something that comes to existence due to the absence of regulation bodies and government intervention. If you have solid institutions and a simple code of laws that allows well-intentioned people to work for their self-interest and of their society, we wouldn't have the amount of regulatory capture that we see nowadays.

> some sort of organization with comparable power on the consumer's side.

When Adam Smith was talking about "the invisible hand", it is precisely this kind of organization that is being talked about. All the people need, as a whole, to have "comparable power" is the freedom to choose and access to information.

The Privacy Regulator rather is pushing for strong end-to-end encryption to protect user data, at least in my country. You are citing something totally different and out of his scope.

End-to-end encryption, by definition, is something that excludes any third-party from being able to intervene. If you take the Hobbesian view of the State and subscribe to the idea that Government has a legitimate monopoly on violence, how would a government be able to exercise this monopoly without relying on cooperation from any of the end parties? It is not in the interest of Governmental agents to give this much power to its citizens.

End-to-end encryption is something that NO government will ever adopt or actually push to its citizens, ever, unless they are one of the "ends" on this.

I don't buy it, and I hate that I am starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but if the concern about privacy was serious, why haven't we seen any legislation about encryption on email? Which country is actually educating people about PGP? Why is the privacy concern only for phone and messaging, where the telcos have been making their money all these years?

You can have a "Privacy Regulator" all you want, in the end it is just a role that is being used to give some sense of legitimacy in this play directed by the corporations.

Would you rather your child learned which items are hot by scarring themselves each time?

Free markets also include the spread of information and signaling. People can learn from the mistakes from others. It is precisely in a free market where the information gets to be spread out the quickest.

Some types of signaling are best to be learned before it becomes a problem. Like killing.

Free market has regulators. This IS the free market deciding.

Edit: My point is that you will not automatically have your privacy violated when a service is acquired by Facebook and most importantly your privacy will not automatically be safe on a service merely because they have not been proven to violate privacy for the time being.