Interesting cultural comparison

Anne Applebaum compares electronic voting with ATMs and online financial transactions in this treatment of American conspiracy theories. I'm reminded of an Australian friend of mine who once marveled that Americans are perfectly willing to share their most personal information with unaccountable private entities from small businesses to multinational corporations, but we're suspicious of sharing too much with our government, which is at least nominally accountable for its conduct. Apparently, the reverse is true in Australia -- they're more suspicious of private entities than their government. (Maybe some Australian readers could comment?) I think it's an interesting cultural comparison.