No respect for privacy

Read this article by Robert Scoble. It is about the import and export of your personal data which you place on ‘social’ websites/services like Facebook, Plaxo, Hyves, Google Friend Connect, etc.
Again it shows that US based companies have a very different view on the privacy of information compared with European companies and the European ‘governments’. Can they keep up this attitude if they want this services to be a global service? What if e.g. China forbids them, will they change the service like Google is doing for their search engine? I wonder, will these companies at a certain point change their service or will they remain on their island and e.g. ban non-US customers?