> The "rules for the government to follow" are the laws, and these aren't being made up, but rather pre-exist (safe harbour laws) with some pretty strong backers (goog et al)

That's true, but to elaborate on that quote a little bit: you can still make the mistake the it describes by making up your own interpretations of "the laws," rather than making up rules out of whole cloth. That's extremely common (especially with Constitutional law), and probably the most frequent way of making that mistake.