Who watches the watchers?

Not for profit privacy watchdogs are conceptually a great idea. Companies of well educated programmers and lawyers come together to test out and grade the massive corporations who now shepard most of our private information. This way laymans are able to make an informed decision on who to entrust with their information. Unfortunately, that idea of not for profit buisnesses is a figment birthed from the same mind which created shows like the West Wing. Whether they are the Susan G Komen cancer foundation (who only made 15-17% of profits available for research from 2009-2011) or the Electronic Fronteir Foundation these entities are still buisnesses with the intent to make money and influence politics. These companies have recently comeunder fire for actions like when "earlier this year, the EFF produced a "score card" of how well Silicon Valley giants protect individual privacy called Who's Watching Your Back? – the EFF gave Google and Facebook top marks." This, dispite having both had class action lawsuits brought against them, data breaches by hackers, and agreements in place with the US government to provide surveillance data on citizens with little judicial or governmental oversight. This gets more worrying when it becomes obvious that top companies like Google have been gaming the system to fund these not for profit companies through direct and indirect methods. " A Californian judge ... rejected a proposed settlement to a class action privacy suit brought against Google" which would have been paid out to Google friendly law schools and privacy groups. "The lawyers for Google and the lawyers for the plaintiffs agreed to settle the class action privacy suit* after four days of "mediation" and "arm’s-length negotiations" and apparently decided that the firm should pay out $8.5m to lawyers and various Google-friendly groups." It is perhaps nearing time for a good round of trust busting as no one is safe when someone must watch the watchdog.