[camccann]

I'm pretty sure he meant "not actually private", in a sense of something like "any organization dependent on the government for survival can be regarded, to some extent, as being effectively a branch of the government".

Of course, by that standard, I'm not sure how many "truly private" companies exist, since it seems to rule out (among others) any company that relies on intellectual property law, including trademark enforcement to prevent bootlegs and cheap imitations.