[Lord_Baltimore]

It is a trade-off which is not always acknowledged. It is not something that has 0 potentially negative consequences. And the competition and innovation that is stifled is often invisible (hard to see what could have been).

If you had less intervention with respect to privacy would there be more dynamic market-driven initiatives to fill the gaps? Would there be more incentive to develop technology that would be effective for privacy? I don't know.

Regulation is just hard because reality is complex and dynamic and regulation is often complex but not very dynamic.

[guitarbill]

> If you had less intervention with respect to privacy would there be more dynamic market-driven initiatives to fill the gaps?

This is hilarious. Because we had that, and it was lacking, to put it mildly. And some people still have that, in a way that's easy to compare (e.g. EU vs US, CA vs other states). For me, the results are in and obvious. Privacy regulations are the only thing that reflects the privacy externalities they might impose on society back onto them (and the shareholders).