Facebook, on the other hand, has sold some of my advertising data, and if I piss off Facebook I won’t be able to share memes on a website. There is hardly a comparison.
You can't just say that, you can't just talk shit about every single government that ever existed, like there was no differences between them. That there was no difference in intent. Like if you were on a desert island with nine other people, would you say that about the organization among the ten of you?
Further, I honestly prefer the contracts the governments of the countries in which I am a citizen to the contracts of practically or literally all businesses and institutions I've encountered.
If governments are muddling it, that makes it even more important for the NYT to un-muddle and call them out on it. And I absolutely agree some countries are using privacy as a dishonest argument.
Apologies for not being clearer here, it's the lack of distinction in the reporting that really riled me. Privacy requirements can — in theory — be met regardless of where the data is actually stored. It just needs to be a place that enables compliance with these requirements. Which just happens to frequently (and sadly) run afoul of "lawful intercept/access" laws.
And I really wish the NYT would have pointed that out.
China has famously been aggressive at controlling data. We all know this and no one thinks it’s about privacy. But the EU has been pushing to on-shore their citizens data. They have been pushing it for privacy AND pushing it as a national security issue. The EU has strong privacy laws, but they also have aggressive tech laws generally. Cambridge Analytica proved that privacy could be security and the whole drama around FB and the elections made nations weary of leaving the US laws to manage platforms.
Everyone wants more privacy - it’s the sugar to the anti-us tech pill. On-shoring data or requiring local companies own the data (and CX) will help local industries at the expense of Silicon Valley bottom lines. Oh and local companies can be controlled by local government, which makes censorship much easier, a convenient win for power grabbing governments.
TLDR Privacy is one of digital “think of the children” phrases that lets governments power grab.