[deong]

It's also conflating a bunch of stuff that goes into Google's valuation that isn't directly tied to ownership of your data. Once upon a time, Google just made a search engine, and that search engine quickly took over the world. Google made a lot of money plopping ads on search results long before you could create a Google account or store all your email there. Presumably, the technical ability to build products like that is worth actual money. If Google deleted all personal data, the company would not be worth $0.

[saas_co_de]

> If Google deleted all personal data, the company would not be worth $0

They would be worth less than zero because without the personal data they would have no ad revenue to subsidize their money losing loss-leader ventures that only exist to collect data and/or suck people in to watch advertising.

[marcinzm]

Google made plenty of money from search and search advertising before personalization.

[saas_co_de]

What you search for is personal data.

The search engine is just a targeting mechanism for ads. You tell Google what you are searching for and they serve you a targeted ad. That has always been the business model.

[marcinzm]

By that logic an ad in a travel magazine is using your personal data.

I personally wouldn't consider search ads with no data being stored or user level history being used as not being personalized or user targeted. They're to me no different from an ad in magazine or a static banner ad on a web page.