If democracy is not strong enough (and I know a few countries...), you (also) need to vote with your wallet. If they don't feel no pain, they won't react.
Regarding companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo; the answer is not using their services at all since you don't pay them yourself but you do by viewing ads.
A week ago I started to migrate my Google Docs data to a git repository. Right now I use plain text files and Latex. Damn, I totally forgot how cool it is to access your data when you don't have an Internet connection.
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People need to remember/learn this:
If democracy is not strong enough (and I know a few countries...), you (also) need to vote with your wallet. If they don't feel no pain, they won't react.
Correct.
Regarding companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Yahoo; the answer is not using their services at all since you don't pay them yourself but you do by viewing ads.
A week ago I started to migrate my Google Docs data to a git repository. Right now I use plain text files and Latex. Damn, I totally forgot how cool it is to access your data when you don't have an Internet connection.
Agree, local storage should always be the default choice, whenever you can.
And also by giving them your data.
Yes, the worst part I forgot :P