There's a world of difference between projecting onto a non-living entity the properties of an animal, or those of a human - so I don't understand why you think what I did was an anthropomorphism. And I find the analogy to animals quite apt to be honest: Humans can have all sorts of motivations, including morality, and if you know that about a person, you can trust them. By comparison, wild animals (at least excluding primates, whales and dolphins) are driven almost exclusively by much simpler motivations, such as getting food or procreating, much the same way large companies are driven simply to generate profit and shareholder value. I don't need to trust a shark, but I can trust it to follow it's shark instincts. I don't need to trust companies, or expect them to care about me, but I trust them to care about their bottom line.

So to be clear: I'm glad Apple and Google are going this route, rather than allow governments to massively track their citizens. And I don't need to trust Apple in order for that to happen, and that's good.

I totally missed your point in the original post. Apologies for that! It seems others didn't. I agree with you.