The Googlization of Everything

Frank Pasquale writes:

... A collective commitment to privacy may be far more valuable than a private, transactional approach that all but guarantees a "race to the bottom."The big question, of course, is whether such rules would effectively "cripple" innovative companies like Google and prevent the development of interfaces like Gmail. Here, I can only suggest that we watch what Europe does. For example, its privacy regulators led the way in requiring certain concessions of Google, and those do not appear to have crippled the company. My main point is just that to the extent we want privacy, it may be something that can only be achieved collectively -- by its very nature it may well be a good that is impossible for the market to provide, because the very act of bargaining for it in some ways lessens its value (by suggesting, however errantly, that the bargainer has something to hide..