boost6r - 12:39 am on Mar 23, 2012 (gmt 0)

Web_speed, thanks for clarifying.

I want to do a lot more reading before I take a stance on this issue, but I will say that the EU Justice Commissioner's arguments, as presented in that article, had a number of logical fallacies. For example, she pointed out that many policies are not read because they are long, complicated, and written in small print, and conveniently ignored the fact that "G"'s new policy is none of those things. She spoke in generalizations, like saying how many citizens were concerned, without specifying what they were concerned about - G? Internet privacy? Privacy in general? She took issue with the fact that users had agreed to a different policy when they signed up, but failed to mention that G's thorough announcement made it nearly impossible for those users to be unaware of the policy change. Finally, she implied that users were being forced into this agreement, which just seems absurd considering that everybody has access to alternatives to G's (mostly free) services.

Of course, none of that has any bearing on whether G is actually wrong in what they are doing, and I need to read more before I fully understand that issue. Thank you for lending your perspective.