[marvy]

Interesting point, but there's a potentially important, albeit somewhat subtle difference. Google collects data which they claim nobody will ever look at. The reason they collect lots of data is so that machines can look at all of it now, while the NSA collects lots of data because they think that a person might need to look at some of it in the future.

[pluma]

If anything, that makes Google's bulk data collection more suspect than the NSA's. Not only do they collect it en masse, they also process it.

(Note that I personally think Google's collection is more ethically defensible than the NSA's, if only because they at least seek implied consent whereas the NSA doesn't even have to pretend)