[simon_vetter]

I'd argue that facebook is as big a threat as gmail, especially when you see how younger generations use it to communicate. Also, keep in mind that facebook tracks and collects your moves all over the internet (hint: look for the little 'like' button on every newspaper/forum/random website and take a look at your cookies from time to time) even if you don't have an account with them. De-anonymization and identification with so-called metadata (cookies, ip addresses, phone numbers, etc) is extremely easy to perform these days.

You can't trust users to make sane choices when it comes to privacy in the exact same way that you can't expect drivers to decide if a car is safe to drive or not. Joe Sixpack isn't going to use browser privacy extensions, clear their cookies, use tor, etc.

Some entity (probably a government/administration of some kind, but I can see NGOs doing that too) needs to be tasked with enforcing privacy laws in the same way that (at least in most of Europe) you are required to have your car inspected for safety and maintenance every few years.

EDIT: Across the EU, the Commission for the Protection of Privacy [1] would be that entity. There are additional government instances in various member states, like CNIL [2] in France.

[1] http://www.privacycommission.be/en/european-union [2] http://www.cnil.fr/ - http://www.cnil.fr/english/