[john_b]

Yes, but they won't do it until it hurts their bottom line. If I owned a European cloud business of any kind I would be heavily advertising to the US market right now. When customers start leaving major US internet companies because they no longer feel that they adequately protect their data and privacy, things will change.

[moens]

IMO the very nature of the centralization of power works against individual rights, one of which is (arguably) privacy. As corporations grow they tend to lose a sense of the customer as a means, and instead choose which type of customer they need in order to maximize profits (or other goals).

Corporations (or any large centralized power base) will optimize for the most exploitable customer or user base, culturing this base if possible. To help broaden a target user base corporations need strong centralized governments more than they need even sizable (but less "culturable") segments of their market base.

Upshot: mature corporations (political parties / religions / etc) will not typically stand up to a centralized government on behalf of a rights-demanding fraction of their market... indeed, typically, they will do the opposite.

[rayiner]

And let's face it, it's not like corporate America needs the government's help to abuse you based on your private information. Not in a day and age where you can be denied a job because of your credit history or kicked off your insurance because of your health records. People throw off tons of data, and companies have been working for decades to figure out how to use it to screw you.