> I think the notion of trusting any company over a certain size is crazy I'd go the reverse. The bigger they are, the more I trust them. > I wish people wou

> I think the notion of trusting any company over a certain size is crazy I'd go the reverse. The bigger they are, the more I trust them. > I wish people would stop anthropomorphizing companies that way. But anybody who trusts them for that reason is indeed crazy. Maybe out definition of trust is different. For me trust means predictability. Do I trust the sun will rise in the east or a stone will roll down the hill? Do I trust my mother will tell me off if I growl at my sister? Do I trust my father will ask me how the finances are going? These things are all predictable - so I trust them. To a lesser extent do I trust these people to keep their word? The answer is sometimes - if my mother promises to look after the kids then definitely, but if she promises not to buy them presents then I'll trust her a little less. Companies are also predictable in some ways. Bigger companies more so than smaller ones, simply because it takes a lot longer to change the direction of a bigger ship. In my book predictable means trustworthy. One of the things you can absolutely have faith in is a bigger company is driven by money. (A small company is more likely to be driven by idealism of its owners.) Money means users, so if a good record on privacy attracts users you can be pretty sure they will do their best to have a good record. Not surprisingly Apple and Google do have an extraordinarily good record on keeping data they store secure - far better than most governments for example. It does not surprise me at all both companies are making a song and dance about how they are safeguarding your location data, and I trust them to do everything within their power to make good on that promise. Unfortunately they aren't gods - if they receive a court order to cough it up, they will. So trust has limits.