What Apple, Facebook and Google each mean by "privacy"

Apple, Facebook, and Google are all firmly on the record now: they agree that privacy is a good thing, that government should protect it, and that you can trust them to respect it. But each company defines privacy differently and emphasizes different trade-offs in delivering it. All three companies view some kind of privacy regulation as inevitable.

• For Apple, privacy is primarily about keeping your personal data between you and your device.
• For Facebook, privacy chiefly means limiting who can see what you post or send.
• Google is now emphasizing privacy as an option that you can invoke.