I apply it equally. The same goes for VPS, EC2, etc., and (especially given recent revelations) it's clear it should apply even to unencrypted communications over the Internet even between nodes you control.
At what point can you actually have a basis for legal recourse?
Once again the problem is that we don't have decentralized technology that would store our data encrypted and serve it only to those who we have granted access. But we will. Actually the new MegaUpload is encrypted.
A: if you want to keep it secret. How often do people find themselves in once in a lifetime moments that they want to keep secret, and want to take photos of, but only have an iphone with them?
B: iphones are not the only phones with built in cameras. If you care about privacy to that extent, you wouldn't own one.
That said, I agree with you. One example is when Service providers unilaterally change their tos by asserting that continued usage implies consent. This puts too much power in the hands of companies like Facebook, where many users are too embedded not to continue.
How do you apply that seemingly unassailable stance to something like iPhone/iCloud, where photos you take with the only camera you have on you during once-in-a-lifetime-moments are immediately and automatically uploaded to a third party for safekeeping?
The solution to all of this data retention/spying stuff is not "start being meticulously paranoid with all of your data", not the least of which is because that won't scale to the majority of the population (and it must, if we are to retain a free society). Furthermore, communications metadata (such as email envelopes with your residential IP and timestamp, cell tower logs that reveal your location, or call logs that reveal your social graph) can't be kept secret unless you _stop communicating with people_. It's a non-starter.
The solution is to alter the legal environment such that these large troves of centralized data are much harder to exploit for evil, both by service providers and military intelligence organizations.