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It's much simpler when you stop trying to pretend the people who run these companies are benevolent angels out to do good in a scary scary world. These companies are run by the same class of people that run the government, they have the same interests and they collude in order to further their interests. Very simple.

> I'm not saying they made the right decision.

You're also not saying they made the wrong decision.

> I'm saying that people treating this as if it were an easy place to be are likely over simplifying the situation.

Nobody is treating it as if it were an easy place to be because nobody gives a shit. It's irrelevant to whether what they did was right or wrong.

Every time a Russian or Chinese oligarch goes to prison the headlines in Western media are about the evil dictatorial governments oppressing the poor oligarchs.

The media is mostly controlled and distributed by private companies that collude with the government for their own benefit, Google and Yahoo are exactly such companies.

> I'm not giving these companies a complete pass for being complicit in the erosion of individual's civil liberties but treating this as if the decision is easy is vastly unfair.

Actually you are giving them a pass because your comment contains nothing but apologetics for these companies. Whether their decision to spy on their customers and invade their privacy was easy is irrelevant and all of your apologetics are worthless speculations based on nothing whatsoever.