| Unfortunately, you are very very wrong, and World war 2 is a great example why: Some countries had census data containing the religion of every family. People proudly declared themselves Jewish. When the Nazis invaded the countries, they grabbed the available data and instantly knew who to send to the camps. One reason why so many Jews died was the speed with which the situation evolved. Sometimes there were 2 weeks between 'nothing to wory' and the deportation. The same principle holds for every big list of intrusive data. Yes, you are grabbing all the data you can only to target ads. Today. But that same data in other hands can block people's access to loan, deny them healthcare or make them look like terrorists. The US democracy is eroding, fast. It is not that far fetched to see the data ending up with the government: 1) How many data has ended up in a FOIA request? You don't know, as you don't see them. 2) Snowden proved that Google already leaked data to the government without even realizing it 3) An executive order from the US president will give him any access to the data. And that's just the US government. Businesses sell data to each other whenever they want. Today Google seems not to do it, but one CxO change or bad financial quarter can change a lot here, fast. Basically, Google is playing with fire, in a political situation equivalent to a big gas leak. Be very carefull. |