On Web Services as Governments

Facebook is a government. Facebook’s users are citizens, and Facebook’s applications developers are the private companies that drive much of the economy. Apple. Twitter, Myspace, Craigslist, Foursquare, Tumblr and every other large network of engaged users (including some services of Google) plays a similar role. We have always tacitly acknowledged this. We talk about these networks as communities, communities have governments.

via unionsquareventures.comVery interesting read. Whith those same companies owning and storing all their user-citizens information and not disclosing much about their own, where are transparency and the necessary checks and balances? As users-citizens, do we have any rights at all that can be duly protected? Real governments do play an important role here and so may international bodies like the EU, for the best of for the worst.