Not that I think it is a bad idea that Google, Facebook, et al. do this, but how exactly is corporate "lobbying" going to:

... serve as a wakeup call to politicians that they were meant to serve the people, not lobbyists.

Touche. Point taken.

This is an unreasonable expectation given that the US monetary system has inflation. Eventually they would really have to raise prices or end up losing too much money.

For users of Chrome, you can change your default Google search to use HTTPS by following the instructions here

It's going to be interesting to see them snoop packets encrypted through a Tor network. The Guardian Project already has a Tor app in the market and are also working on a lot of other cool tools.

If I could, I would mod you up. I couldn't have said it any better.

It is really disappointing to see things like this, which are not even close to being newsworthy, becoming front-page material.

And to build upon your Ron Paul quote, Benito Mussolini famously stated that "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Buyer beware.

touché