Today’s internet feudalism […] is ad hoc and one-sided. We give companies our data and trust them with our security, but we receive very few assurances of protection in return, and those companies have very few restrictions on what they can do.

[…]

Perhaps instead of hoping that our Internet-era lords will be sufficiently clever and benevolent—or putting our faith in the Robin Hoods who block phone surveillance and circumvent DRM systems —it’s time we step in in our role as governments (both national and international) to create the regulatory environments that protect us vassals (and the lords as well). Otherwise, we really are just serfs.

Bruce Schneier, “Feudal Security”