"The largest modern privacy concern is being dependent on any one private party." How does that follow at all? It doesn't. Further, Snowden pointed out govern

"The largest modern privacy concern is being dependent on any one private party." How does that follow at all? It doesn't. Further, Snowden pointed out government abuse surreptitiously gathering user data. In the wake of that the government has a much, much harder time doing so covertly, so in many cases they engage in the same data broker activities that everyone else does. They don't have tap underseas cables anymore -- they can just buy the data wholesale from a wide variety of sources.