> A targeted order to wiretap (or otherwise spy on) a specific person or entity is entirely different from widespread data collection, retention, and sale for whatever corporate purpose. With widespread collection the data is then sitting there in a data lake waiting to be subpoenaed by law enforcement at their leisure for any arbitrary reason they happen to think up potentially years in the future.

I do see what you mean, but they are differences of degree, not kind. It could be considered a best practice to minimize PII etc, but even other groups don’t do any better. Signal still uses phone numbers.

> > they are going to be legally compelled to do them, so the network structure’s form follows that function

> You can't be compelled to hand over that which you do not have. Neither can you be compelled to modify your product in a particular manner absent market wide legislation; see FBI v Apple if you doubt that.

I agree. However, Apple is also confident enough in their legal team, reasoning, funding, and likely legal outcomes that they will flout NSLs in America, and yet they will cave to UK in that they disabled Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (in UK) which means that iCloud files aren’t really E2EE if the government can just say that you can’t do that anymore. Not your keys, not your files and the security and privacy of said effects thereof.