Stasi is complaining that the KGB is spying on them.

If the "privacy" exec at google opposes NSA backdoors then I wouldn't be surprised if he suffered a sudden "accident" like being buried by an avalanche while climbing Mt. Everest.
Oh wait....

An avalanche kicked off by HAARP .. Oh, wait, HAARP has been de-funded ...

(Clipped from a story on the Nepal Mr. Everest disaster)

"Dan Fredinburg, a Google executive who described himself as an adventurer, was among the dead, Google confirmed. Lawrence You, the company's director of privacy, posted online that Fredinburg was with three other Google employees hiking Mount Qomolangma. Fredinburg served as product manager and the head of privacy at Google X."

There are only two required sessions at FB new hire orientation. One is how to use the expense reporting system. Two is privacy - details of how quickly you will be fired and/or turned over to the police for trying to look at profile information you don't have normal acess to (eg non FB friends). And how all data that might travel over a wire (which is most of it, sooner or later) must be encrypted. Basically the FB brand dies if there is no trust. Google feels similarly.

Take it as a case of giant evil corporations (because giant corporations must be evil, right?) pushing back against a benevolent government full of loving kindness - that wants to know where you are and what you say every moment of your life, just in case.

I would trust Google and Facebook more with my data. For both it is a privileged trade secret data which neither wants any competitor to get any of it. Their fear of backdoors is twofold: customers will leave them fi they do not protect privacy and they do not trust the government not to share their information with competitors.

More than what, a billboard along side the nearest interstate? Heck, FB has already admitted running attitude manipulation experiments in conjunction with Cornell and one of the UC crowd with government funding. Your "data" isn't a trade secret; it's yours, it belongs to you. If they want to sell it, they should have to come to you, ask your permission, give you a piece of the action, and provide periodic reports, just like any other royalty arrangement. You are being had.

These folks need to be on the receiving end of a good solid body blow. The US isn't going to do it because the government believes it should know more than anyone else about everything but knows both are bigger and smarter than anyone here and so, going begging, has got itself into a situation where it can be manipulated by either one.

Users? Please. When's the last time anyone downloaded, printed, and read the thirty page EULA, privacy agreement, and conditions from either one before clicking "Accept?"

I have no use for the EU's legal folks, but I hope they deliver good, solid blows to Google's solar plexus in the current dust-up over there. Neither one is going to change until users - you - stop giving yourselves away.

Google and Facebook just want that privilege for themselves, and don't want that access given to a future Republican Administration. Their track records tell us not to trust Google and Facebook on anything, especially on handling customer data.

What a crock. This is simply a charade put on by the Google and Facebook executives to convince the rubes in fly-over country, not the mention the urban hipster twits, that they don't do Obama's police state bidding.

At this point, Facebook and Google ARE the government. Whether its social policy, immigration, or taxation, we all have to bow to the dictates of the Fed/Google/Facebook axis.

It's either what elkhoong says, or they want a bargaining chip in case the government comes calling for data. "We'll trade you customer information for immunity from investigation."

An increasingly close partnership between unaccountable supra-national megacorps and sovereign governments: who could possibly object?

Our shackles are being forged in front of our eyes.

If Google and Facebook 'cave', then we won't 'trust' them either ... for the security conscious the traffic will just go elsewhere, use different means, methods and techniques, or be selective about what is made public (that should be SOP right now anyway.)

For the stupid or unaware, not so much ...

You mean some "we" actually "trust" them?

Don't be too damn literal ... or we might think you _are_ a member of 'the stupid or unaware' ...

Google and Facebook want to be the only one who can access customers' data. They will sell it to the govt. or anyone else if the price is right.