Here is a pretty interesting read from the Times online on Google and the privacy concern. I like Google, I use Google, I think they have some great apps, a great search engine, but at some point you have to draw the line with how much data you willingly provide to them.

The money/scary quote from the story:

Google’s overall goal is to have a record of every e-mail we have ever written, every contact whose details we have recorded, every file we have created, every picture we have taken and saved, every appointment we have made, every website we have visited, every search query we have typed into its home page, every ad we have clicked on, and everything we have bought online. It wants to know and record where we have been and, thanks to our search history of airlines, car-hire firms and MapQuest, where we are going in the future and when.

I admit, Google has my financial information through Adsense and Adwords, they know what my websites are through Webmaster tools, they know where I live and the color of my house through Google maps and they can probably guess what car I drive and what I like to eat through the searches I’ve performed in their search box/toolbar.

I also have a Gmail account, however I rarely use it and never use it for personal e-mails because I just feel they have enough on me as it is. And the same goes for their other apps like Picasa, Notebook, etc, which I’ve avoided not because they are bad apps but rather because I’m skittish when it comes to my privacy. And looking ahead, I don’t want to put Google tags on all my valuables so that the search engine can find them when I can’t. I don’t even want Google to know what my valuables are!

I am afraid that one day (and that day may have already come) Google might know more about me than my family members, relatives and close friends do. Scary, but true.

I get that Google is trying to help users with better tailored search results but handing over your private life to one company should be a frightening prospect. And for me it is.

Yet if you want to sign up for every application they have or every service they provide, then just be aware of what you might be getting yourself into.
Yes, I know Google says that they protect your privacy, your data, but maybe that policy changes someday. But just how private is your data? Can the government get at it? Ad companies? What if down the road a person is sued and lawyers subpoena Google’s “data folder” on that person. What then?

If information = power then Google’s only getting more powerful.