Privacy is like drinking water: no one in the US cares about it until it's on the news. Why don't people care about clean water? Because federal agencies set s

Privacy is like drinking water: no one in the US cares about it until it's on the news. Why don't people care about clean water? Because federal agencies set standards and test for them. You could bore someone to death talking about it until Flint happened. And sure some people buy water tests to verify they're not getting poisoned, or setup their own filtration systems but most people don't want to waste the time or don't have the knowledge. Just the same as privacy. Not every can or will get educated about privacy, and really they shouldn't have to, it should be a waste of their time. But it's not because we don't set standards for it. Most people give it away without knowing it's value only to have it bite them in the ass later through identify theft, data breaches, or eventually giving into a surveillance state where the government and big corporations know more about your than your mom does. This is why it needs government intervention, because without it corporations will claim to give you a choice every step of the way but no one will understand what those choices entail, and it turns out they'll badger and pester you to make the choices that benefit themselves. Relatedly, this is why I am OK with iOS being a walled garden. Sure, they make bank from it, but that incentivises them to make it protected. As I said in another thread, they're the only one capable and willing of enforcing privacy rules until the government steps up.