[GigabyteCoin]

Because it's not their information to play with. If I willingly give my information to Google or Facebook, I don't expect the government to get their hands on it immediately and begin interrogating me via proxy.

There have been what... 3, 4 deaths from terrorism this year in the USA? And 6,000+ deaths by way of guns/criminal activity? Doesn't really seem to be worth their trouble to be snooping through who I talk to and who I hang out with.

[melange]

Most people don't willingly give the information to Google or Facebook. They give it unwittingly.

Also, by your logic, it's not your information anymore - you have given it to Google and Facebook, which makes it their information to give to the government.

[GigabyteCoin]

Exactly. I understand that if I give away my social profile and/or pictures to a large corporation that they may be abused by said corporation. That's what corporations do.

I choose not to do so, I don't use facebook or gmail, but if I did I would only expect them to be using and abusing it, not some secret government program.

[melange]

But why would such an expectation be reasonable? Surely once you have given the information away, it's their business what they do with it?

[frenger]

Precisely: many if not most websites have Google Analytics JS, so you're being tracked around the web (ghost profile) even without a google account.