“The first is a smart grid variation on a technique that’s already used to protect private information collected for health care databases or by Internet services like Google and Amazon”
Such statements have bogus written large. Health care data bases are a huge problem as we speak. Government can get their hands on any data it desires by virtue of the large hammer it is able to wield, called blackmail, illegal in any circle other than government.
As to Google and Amazon, two of the worst offenders IMHO.