> working from home monitoring, or insurance companies profiling individuals
Comparing that with what governments can do with data gathered about me, I know which ones I want to be protected from. Unfortunately they are the ones writing privacy laws and they leave huge loopholes for themselves.
especially not in systems in which the goverment turns totalitarian. (see, fascism and while stalinism doens't have the concept of a company, many of its state owned enterprises where former companies).
There is often no clear dividing line between government and corporations. You give one freedom to abuse privacy and it will be used by the other.