That is against what the shareholders want because it reduces the money.
Ergo, it will never happen.
At best we can expect some half baked ambiguous promises about not being evil (Google), excited yapping about something else as a distraction (Microsoft) or deafening silence (Apple) all backed up with thousands of pages of legalese and even more ambiguous international law.
So forget it; we have to move our feet. Stop being lazy and relying on all the services. Take a minimal set of services from elsewhere (I just have a domain and an IMAP box hosted by two small companies) and give the finger to them all.
95%+ of people are totally ignorant on the matter and would happily walk off a cliff. The shareholders know that.
If you look at most corporate mentality, it's not about doing a good job. It's about maximising return to shareholders and if doing a shitty job and getting away with it pays off then that's what will happen.
It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission here from a business POV.
(and yes this attitude thoroughly disgusts me but it's prevalent and unavoidable)
this isn't about profit as some claim, its about the absolute ability of governments to do as they wish. you choice as a corporation is simple, cooperate or get shut down.
to fix this requires getting voters to elect politicians who abhor this arrangement.
Do you honestly believe that is an option, when the mechanism for election is controlled by the very people and system you'd try to replace?
Regardless of what they say, they have a bad track record and motivation to maximise profit so public assurances are about as valuable as BP's assurance on not letting oil escape from their kit in future.
That being said, whether such an ultimatum would ever actually happen? Yeeeeeah...
What, did you, the cattle, think you could revolt against your rancher masters with impunity forever?
What do you think Google will say and do if the Government suggests giving preferences and lavish benefits to Microsoft or vice versa?
The only thing that really can be done is getting politically involved. Politics, elections, transparency, combating corruption, digital activism, etc. are all the only way that this will ever be prevented from metastasizing into something far more devious and nefarious. I hate to say it, but the only solution is suffocating and starving our own governments into submission. We have bred a bred beasts and they are fed with endless and unrestrained taxing power, reality is that we really need to implement what Republicans pay lip service to .... actually cutting taxes. Cut, cut, cut, taxes; limit the tax money to a set amount which then forces the government to have to prioritize, that includes for the military. We have a sleeping demon on our hands with the current surveillance government, which is directly a result of the plundering bonanza of unlimited and unfettered funding for militarism under the guise of security and freedom from boogiemen we create.