Kufu - 4:21 pm on Jan 25, 2006 (gmt 0)

oddsod,

No one is really forcing us to use the Google tools. Google simply offers things which are immensely useful in return for gathering information.

I am, to some extent, willing to live with that tradeoff; but if at any point one or all of Googles offerings were to become mandatory in order to be able to use the engine, then I would quickly look somewhere else.

When installing the Google toolbar, we can read a full privacy policy, and choose to disable the reporting of anonymous data. And it is also incredibly easy to uninstall, unlike other spyware which hides and is sometimes impossible to clean out, unless someone has written a special script.

Am I being too naive?