Rating agencies are irrelevant at this point. You'd have to a total economic ignoramus to think the US is AAA. This'll be abundantly clear even to the masses by next year.
There already are penalties for breaking the rules (ruined reputation), and probably far worse ones from a violator's perspective than even an ideal government regulatory fiefdom would provide. The government certainly ain't gonna be throwing people in jail for failing to back up some data, and it sure would be scary if they started. Instead...fines! ? Goverment and big, well-connected businesses have done a wonderful job of convincing people that regulations are what prevent companies from screwing people over, when they are merely a way for major corporations to keep out competition by making it harder small businesses to compete.
This is an incoherent objection. "Efficiency" isn't some abstract Platonic concept. It is always efficiency for what? And for whose goals?
EDIT: Not to mention that there would be a profit incentive for a private regulation business if the market's already incredibly stong medicine of loss of reputation and business failure weren't enough. Not every problem requires violence or the threat of violence to solve.
Why, other than for fairness? I have far more confidence that Apple will spend the money in a way that benefits me than that the government will. They certainly have so far.
...you have the world as it is. You can already move to change governments, only now you have to move farther than you used to. Notice how most of the oppression in the US is from the federal government, not state or municipal ones. We are predisposed to support government as a holdover from our instincts about tribal politics, but tribes never got anywhere near as big as 1/4 billion people. That immense power abuses result should surprise no one.