How am I taking it personally? I am just stating my take on it -- I read this article earlier (On G+ lol) and I just came to that conclusion and saw peoples opinions, etc on it already...

So I guess maybe my... lack of debate? Seems to have made it though as I was taking it personally? (i.e not trying to defend google, etc) I am just saying my take on it -- that it isn't much of an issue before or after the policy changes, and I've presented that Google allows you to take your data and run so eh -- I am just having a really hard time grasping the true issue? I guess?

I guess?

skype is a lousy bloated 12mb app that dumps your bios the moment you turn on the PC piping it all to unknown servers, reads everything it could (/etc/passwd in linux, firefox profiles, etc), and is still 'alive' (like, sending traffic someplace) even after you "sudo kill" it.
just to name a few.
and that's a fact.
that's skype.
now imagine google.
and now consider what you'd like your future employer a few years from now to know about you....
just an illustrative example.

what i am saying here, or at least trying to convey, is google is not doing this for anything to do with your wellbeing or privacy, it has been wisely calculated by people having in mind stuff like profit shares.

what i am disappointed with, considering this is google, is how transparent it all is, like an american prozac commercial already.

Everything that is said on the internet is probably logged, and stored forever, but few realize this, or care to act accordingly. Sure, right now, nothing bad is happening. Google is fighting government requests for data. But who's to say it will always be this way? Already, with bills like SOPA, it seems this will not last much longer. Google and Facebook have more data on the lives of hundreds of millions of Americans than the CIA, FBI, DEA, etc. have been able to compile in their entire history. The mere existence of such a database is frightening.

They actually cooperate far more frequently than they would like us to believe... seen countless cases in the news where Google turned over someone's search history and got them convicted. Also, who's to say they aren't cooperating outside of the courts? AT&T said they required warrants to tap phones, and then it turned out they had allowed the NSA to tap every single phone call going through their networks, without a warrant, and completely illegally. The government can make use of illegal searches to nail people without getting the search tossed in court by simply using this data to begin investigations... so if you have a search history involving drug manufacture they could start monitoring your home for strange things that could get them a real search warrant... and claim they stumbled on you by accident.

If they are doing none of these things now, the future still is a concern. The laws are constantly changing and for the worse. Perhaps reading about drug manufacture is legal now. But how do we know it won't be illegal in 2020? Again, this data is probably going to exist till the end of time. Data storage is extremely cheap these days - look at how much free space Gmail offers!

There is no reason to trust any of these people... be very careful what you say online if you're in the US. Use a proxy, get a "shell" and route your connections through it, or don't type "bad" things into your computer...

bahahah yeah laughable .... privacy? you've got to be fuckin joking!

tryl  and all those wasps kinda disappointed with the google fu situation

if you use the internet, google owns your ass.
and you'd be amazed the extent to which you can be used and abused by google, facebook or any of those fuckers.

again, i say, i am just aware of this and have grown to not care about it.
the whole idea of an enterprise like google is make maximum profit with minimal investment in minimal time.
you can't blame google for the fact that people generally suck and deserve to die.
and do you, for a second, imagine the NSA doesn't have their fingers dipped in there?
just common sense and rationality speaking here.

Kinda sums it up, and I agree completely> however as was pointed out, the Internet has become a resource to be mined, and mined it is

if you're naive enough to think otherwise, you're pretty naive! so if ya dont want the possibilty of it being known, you DONT TELL..anyone, in the meat too (especially!)

If or when things go to shit, and its their arse or yours, chances are you'll end up enjoying a holiday like DT's getting soon

Vesp I also think has a very valid pov which I think is shared by many people who 'dont mind, dont care' probably dont know, about the world  knowing their secrets, via google analytics,
lol they probably havent got any .....how boring

(and if they do, there are "other" ways of staying out of the loop, but for how long? the way things are going!)

BUT....seriously, "data on the net is free" and everything you put online is "secondhand news, which is ANYBODIES news"

which is why the fuckers want to control it!  FREE ... thats fuckin communism and they cant have that in the land of apple pie with coke er I mean cream 

you can't blame them for that, cos it can't be any other way around.
at some point money is no longer money but power play, and they are in that club.
i would tend to believe their originial agenda/motto of "don't be evil" has been an honest one up to a point.
i like google, just the fact that they still exist by now, are no longer dead & own the net is indicatory enough.
simple as that, lol.

Why? The discussion seems to be civil, and it's a very important topic...

If the thread has strayed then kindly move it to the den -- If this is about the rules, we can all take a fresh look at them.
Government is controlled by money, the Corporations are making money, and they are easily swayed to make decisions on behalf of shareholder interests.