Quite a few people have asked what I think of the new, unified Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. The short answer is that it’s nothing to worry about.
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If you are smart, you use Gmail above all other free email services because it works the best. You probably use a bunch of other Google services as well. However, Google is a successful corporation that does not place your interests above their company interests. It is entirely conceivable that they may screw you some time, in some way. Until it happens, just enjoy the amazing shit they provide to you at no charge.
Besides, Facebook is already screwing you much harder than Google could even dream of.
Frankly, I think the whole Internet “privacy” thing as as hyped a non-issue as the whole “Apple is tracking and recording your position” panic, which turned out to be just a way to improve location services. Fer chrissakes, everything on Facebook is something the user put up themselves; if you don’t want people to know about it, don’t frickin’ upload it to the Internet. People have supermarket and other member cards, not to mention credit cards, from which data on far more personal info is being mined and people don’t seem to care.
If this were data that could and would be used for blackmailing, destroying careers, etc., then I’d be concerned. But if this is just about self-uploaded content which human eyes will not see and Google is just using to make more money–which it is–then people have got to stop having conniptions and getting the vapors every time this kind of non-story is over-exaggerated in the media.
What pisses me off is not the false alarms about privacy, it’s the fact that Google merged their services. I have two commonly-used GMail accounts and a third institutional account based on GMail; previously, I could be logged into all three using different services (e.g., mail, YouTube, News, etc.), but now the goddamned arses at Google are making me log out and back in almost every time I try to load a web site. Ticks me off, that does.