I’d like to feel less cynical about all this, but I’m sorry, I don’t.
The real reason these companies are doing this is that the telco’s get to sell this data and this kind of access to the government (for outrageous fees, the bigger the telco the higher the prices) and the dotcoms are just upset that they’re often being asked to provide it for free.
The public facing side of this being framed this way is just brand marketing. I feel a little dirty every time I have to read another one of these headlines. None of these companies really care about a user, they care about being able to monetize the data they have without someone “stealing” it from them.
