
Who Is More Trust-Worthy with Our Data: The Government or Big Companies? - kylelibra
http://techcrunch.com/2011/04/14/who-is-more-trust-worthy-with-our-data-the-government-or-big-companies-tctv/
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locopati
Consider that the governments (state & federal) have all your data and have
since you were born. Do you think a bigco would have held all that data for
that long without making your life a living hell? (imagine the spam and
unsolicited phone calls that you would be getting wo the protection of said
government). If anything, things have become worse as more bigcos (like
insurers) require government managed data (like health records).

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iwwr
Consider it this way, the worst that happens when a corporation is involved,
you may get some spam. There is no limit to how bad things can get if your
profile suddenly gets flagged (everything from air travel harassment to
Guantanamo).

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_delirium
There's not necessarily a distinction between the two, though, because many
companies willingly share data with governments (either due to disinterest in
fighting requests, for economic or political gain, or some other reason), or
else share the data with other companies who in turn do so.

From that perspective, a large company having your data seems likely to be
equivalent to _multiple_ governments having your data, unless you have some
reason to believe the company is not sharing your data with governments, _and_
is not sharing your data with other companies who will share the data with
governments. Otherwise, the conservative guess is that a large company having
your data implies that the governments of all countries they operate in, as
well as the governments of all countries their business partners operate in,
have access to your data (or at least, can get access if they decide to).

