zlacker

>>pbrw+(OP)
Ok, my contrarian hot take (for HN at least). The real entities we need to be afraid of in regards to privacy are governments & politicians, not companies & entrepreneurs.

The worst thing a company can do is try to sell you more soap. The government on the other hand can literally ruin your life (or even end it in some countries).

The EU is doing a fantastic job of keeping everyone distracted by pointing the finger at the "evil American tech companies" while simultaneously doing the opposite when it comes to privacy from government...which is the real threat.

I could point to many instances of this but the easiest one is the EU commission currently pushing a ban on encryption.

>>pembro+eb
As the old saying goes: don’t lie, don’t steal: the government doesn’t like competition.

Although I do believe that governments should be liable (is this the best word?) to people and in turn make companies liable too.

>>ahoka+ce
Accountable? Democratic governments are accountable to people. How well that works in practice varies of course; there's always room to improve democracy, but the basic principle is there.

Companies are, according to some ideologies, only really accountable to their shareholders and to the law. If you want to hold them more accountable, the law is generally the way to do that.

Autocratic governments are of course not accountable to the people, and autocratic parties in democracies go out of their way to undermine their accountability.