> Google (and to some extent FB, Microsoft and Amazon) is where the danger lies.
You can't point to any single company and blame them for this mess, because the problem is in the interactions /between/ companies. There are hundreds of companies you've never heard of whose entire business is the gathering and merging of data, then trading it with others. This isn't a surveillance state, it's a surveillance market, and that's a much harder thing to track.
Sure, it would be good and valuable to make the Big Names less dangerous. But it's important to understand: if you just cut G, F, A & M out of your life, you won't be much safer. Most of the data about you is being gathered from sources with which you have no easily-manageable relationship.
You can't blame a business for doing what they're meant to, making money, as long as something is legal and profitable they will do it, the problem is the lack of regulations and the failure of government to keep pace with technology.
You can't point to any single company and blame them for this mess, because the problem is in the interactions /between/ companies. There are hundreds of companies you've never heard of whose entire business is the gathering and merging of data, then trading it with others. This isn't a surveillance state, it's a surveillance market, and that's a much harder thing to track.
Sure, it would be good and valuable to make the Big Names less dangerous. But it's important to understand: if you just cut G, F, A & M out of your life, you won't be much safer. Most of the data about you is being gathered from sources with which you have no easily-manageable relationship.