I have had it with Google in terms of privacy issues. I know more than a few of you here hate Google for the same reason, and I was a supporter of them until I heard that they bought Nest.
http://www.wired.com/2014/01/google-didnt-just-acquire-nest-annexed-whole-new-territory/
In case you have not heard of Nest, it is a company that makes home automation and security systems for homes and offices (smart refrigerators, stoves and ovens, HVAC systems, alarm systems, lighting systems, media systems, etc). This is more Google worming itself into EVERY aspect in our lives, and entire nations are up in arms over it.
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They are the closest real life analogy to Skynet. Microsoft is currently the bed partner of the NSA and the military and intelligence communities, but Microsoft's reach is not nearly as granular as Google's. Microsoft gives the NSA the ability to read your emails and documents in Office apps, and it can allow the NSA to explore the contents of your entire computer UNLESS you have encrypted it with a non-Microsoft product like TrueCrypt. It makes no sense to use Microsoft' Bitlocker to do it since they created it.
. Google is much different. With the saturation of Android on the majority of the world's smartphones, and the wide use of Chrome, Google has it's eyes on the masses. It can aggregate the sort of real time data that Microsoft cannot hope to have anytime soon. Locations, time frames, personal interests and desires, photos and text messages and phone calls and circles of friends and relatives, it is mind-boggling. If you use Google products like Google Finance and Google Public DNS, you are in even deeper than you know.
MORE about what information they collect and how they collect it here:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/01/08/how-google-collects-data-about-you-and-the-internet/
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Now, Google is going to be in your refrigerators and home appliances too. People will be walking around as potential agents of Google (unwittingly) with real time first person data at street level provided by Google Glass, who needs the Google Street View vehicles? I have already decided:
I will not allow Google Glass to be worn in my home. I hope that laws will be passed to ban them from hospitals, courtrooms, theaters, restaurants, bars and any other place they might compromise privacy.
Enough on that...
I have uninstalled Google Chrome and gone with SRware Iron which is Chromium based, but not Google. It even has an incognito mode you can create a switch for in a shortcut to start. I have made my homepages Dogpile and DuckDuckGo (the Iron choice) because Google no longer gives you honest search results. It puts paid clients at the top of the search, and does not tell you they are sponsored. The sponsored ads are not clearly marked always either. I uninstalled Google Earth too. See, we can use these services without having to have Chrome or Earth, just by using a browser (as long as it isnt Chrome).
Why is it that when small, great companies become big greedy companies, they get carried away? It happened to Dropbox, Twitter, Youtube, Tumblr, Flickr, Facebook, Skype and more are going that route.
Google's great features can be replicated with a bit of work, using open source solutions and perhaps a few small time bucks (I had to buy a commercial Caldav/Carddav client for Outlook to sync with my private OwnCloud server), but it is well worth it. With the Webdav app for Android, I have a fully synced private solution which keeps my contacts, calendar, documents, pictures and whatever else I want. Bittorrent Sync takes care of syncing between my home computers, and a home storage area server (NAS) stores all my data centrally and is scalable.
This is NOT expensive to do! Anyway, just had to get this out.