[criddell]

That, and the telcos have a history of being very helpful to the government. I'm thinking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A.

Google seems to do a better job protecting their network and defending user security.

[Bartweiss]

Another good point. Even assuming that Google has lots of government ties and no real respect for privacy, I still don't expect them to roll over with no discretion whatsoever. I pretty much expect Verizon to do like AT&T and surrender all their user data unprompted.