Big tech walking fine line on data

A year after Edward Snowden shocked citizens with details of how much of their lives are being snapped up by the National Security Agency, technology giants have sounded alarms about the government’s practices -- but maintained near radio silence about their own data-collection efforts.

The companies, which themselves collect increasingly granular bits of data on users to fuel advertising revenue, have taken few steps to curtail their own corporate data practices. Think of it as the Internet’s version of a marketing Jedi mind trick. If everyone is focused on the government’s surveillance, maybe people won’t zero in on what companies have. The response from Silicon Valley shows that while the Snowden leaks have sparked fears in the industry about a damaged reputation, they haven’t prompted companies to rethink their basic business models -- which produce the very data the NSA covets. And a privacy marketing war with products and services that give consumers more control over their data hasn’t really materialized, to the dismay of advocacy groups and regulators.