[mzjs]

(Mostly) agree. Google is out of control, and they'll do anything to sell more ads.

The best solution is simply to not use google products (which aren't that good anyway).

- duckduckgo for search - dropbox, box, etc. for files - openstreetmap for maps - firefox for web browsing (except firefox is about to introduce advertising, too, so I'm not sure about this one.)

This way, your data is decentralized, making it harder to track you. Also, these companies each focus on just one product, meaning their products are better anyway.

[swader]

It's not about centralization, imo. An out of control AI will be able to harvest this data from wherever - Google just has the best starting set and the most robust data stream to make the initial leap, I think. But I agree with moving away from Google as much as possible, though FF is dubious - it's both a mediocre browser and will, as you say, introduce ads.