> I know that if I use Yandex, at least some of my data is going to reside in Russia. If Dailymotion, France. I consider it up to me as a consumer to decide whether that's what I really want. I don't consider it my local government's job to force those companies to change their business models.
This is a ridiculous position to take, because it requires a humanly impossible amount of research to know whether the privacy of your data is protected. And that's when the information is even available.
Privacy is a basic human right. When corporations collect your data it becomes the responsibility of those corporations to protect your privacy. Individuals simply do not have the resources to enforce this, which is why we elect people to enforce this. This isn't some crazy responsibility for governments: this is the fundamental reason why governments exists: to protect the interests of their citizens collectively when it's infeasible to protect those interests individually.
