BeeDeeDubbleU - 1:53 pm on Oct 21, 2007 (gmt 0)

Google's intentions may well be the most benign of the bunch!

Ted, you may be right, but you are presumably talking about Google as it is now. What happens five, ten or twenty years down the line when the new board of directors decides that the information they have collected can somehow be used legally to generate further profits?

I know I keep harping on about this but with the China capitulation a couple of years ago Google have already clearly illustrated that "Don't be Evil" only applies when it suits them. I am not talking about Page and Brin here. These guys were genuine visionaries but decisions like these will be out of their hands in future.

As I said ... a scary prospect and one that would have been inconceivable (if not illegal) just a few years ago. I am afraid that I would not trust any commercial company with all that information. Read again ...

every e-mail we have ever written every contact whose details we have recorded every file we have created every picture we have taken and saved every appointment we have made every website we have visited every search query we have typed into its home page every ad we have clicked on everything we have bought online it wants to know and record where we have been and, thanks to our search history of airlines, car-hire firms and MapQuest, where we are going in the future and when.

I think I would be right in saying that no single organisation currently holds anything like that amount of information. If it was discovered that your government or mine tried to do this there would be a revolution.