tedster - 8:05 pm on Dec 5, 2007 (gmt 0)

This kind of "study" bothers me a bit. It's really about what "might" happen, rather than what IS happening.

Google, as I see it, has one of the strongest track records for protecting individual privacy against abuses. They need world community support in their stance against invasive government requests, not fear tactics. The world community should begin to work out the very touchy details of how to balance privacy conacerns with the reality of personal data mining and surveillance.

Google is an ally in this important concern, and the problems come more from cross-country differences than Google. Many other online companies (e.g. Facebook's current Beacon fiasco) are a lot more "invasive" than Google who is pretty above board about what data they collect and letting an individual opt out.