... which has nothing to do at all with why Goolge is considered "evil".

There's two things here:

Investment in open source is one thing. It doesn't have to be good per definitionem - a lot depends on licensing, impact on other community projects and existing open standards (read: fragmentation) etc - but it can be a nice thing to do.

The other issue is privacy. The way they collect data without people knowing it. The fact that they can merge data from Google Analytics and Adsense with my preferences in YouTube... that's frightening.

These two aspects of Google are independent of each other. I can be afraid of the amount of data they collect and still use applications developed with their financial support.

I understand that fact that Google is growing fast and big. But as long as there are alternatives (to google's services) and Google is not buying up all competition, there is no reason to say Google services are evil - as it ties you down to Google.

Every company has products which tie down to some extent.
The fact that alternatives are there is what distinguishes Google from a monopoly and the fact that they don't (as yet) have arrangements with service providers to restrict providing other alternative services and only provide Google services (much like MS did with bundling arrangements with vendors).

If and when Google starts to really buy up competitors in each segment it plays in - then even I will be worried.

The fact that many people worry over the fact that Google pries into your activities when you use Google (most are machine algorithms) seems to me to be unjustified, since if you are privacy minded dont use Google's services and instead use the already existing alternatives. Google is not doing its data colletion surreptitiosly. Most of its data collection activities are known and disclosed by Google and also specifically stated how long they keep such user data etc.

Its only if Google takes away those major alternatives is when we should be worried.

I am no Google supporter by ideology or whatever ... its just that I agree to such privacy issue's that Google mentions and gladly use their product as it benefits me.

I also do the same with other services (there was a discussion here as to why would people give their password to financial aggregators (like Mint) - must be stupid people), but I do.
(did I call myself stupid ?)

I though you wanted to marry the N900 ... what - polygamy ?

I can see your point, but it's only half true.

When we're talking about collecting data (from various sources), the potential danger multiplies with each additional data source they get. So we needn't wait until Google buys all competition... The truth is that there is no competition any more. I'm not aware of any other company or organisation on this planet that holds more data about me. There's not one single other company out there that has so many data sources.


The point is that Google doesn't only collect your data when you use Google services. They also collect your data when you don't use Google services (through Google Analytics and Adsense)... and this happens without people knowing. (I never saw I website that told me on the front page "We're using Google Analytics. Click to proceed only if your comfortable with that.")

I'm not sure if I should trust any of their statements on what they actually collect, how long they keep it etc. - Only last week I sent a presentation to a new co-worker that would never have been possible if I only had access to the data we say we keep. If the data's available, why wouldn't they use it? Who would ever know?

That should be something that you can find out from using the browsers built in 'view source'. Maybe someone could make a firefox addon that warns people when it finds that a website is using Analytics. Although, that would still not help the people who have not been warned or are not aware of it.

If privacy was the issue with this purchase (of which its one of only a few), then the comment has relevance.

I posted it here (talk.maemo), because of the appeal to persons here of "open" services like Gizmo5 and the direction of such matters when analytics such as AdMob are attached to them in order to not only track you, but also selectivly feed you information based on a smattering of data that you may or may not know that's being collected about you. Which takes the idea of open to not just include development, but to also mean "open to create profit streams where there might not have been any."

On Google's end, they have a terms of service that you *choose* to opt into. In that ToS, they say that information analytics are taken, and they say (some) of how that information is used in order to serve you advertising and other features. What they don't tell you is any extrapolated information, patterns/conditions, or connections to other person's data - and all of that against public data sources from governments and private data sources from companies to which they have entered into agreements with.

If most of us were paying attention in history class, we would see that Google is simply repeating history, yet seemingly using the lessons learned from those that failed and had antitrust and other cases brought against them. Unfortunately for many of those that could do something about it, Google has the front and backend covered (they lobby for the public policy that people would affirm, while making money off the public information that people no longer wanted control over).

Whether its wrong or right depends on more than I want to get into. And at the same time, it exactly the studying of history that's got me going "ooooh! That reminded me of Standard Oil and a few other folks from the backend of the Industrial Revolution." To see these moves by Google and other companies, and not pay attention to their implications would be dour for this and any technological community IMO.

Well as a google voice customer, I think its great that they now own gizmo5. I have my google voice routed to a gizmo5 sip number, but it works kind of quirky. I hope this means google voice will just route to google talk, then I won't even have to setup an additional account to receive VoIP calls on my N900.

Out of curiosity, what Google alternatives do some of you use? Regarding any service you might think of? (Particularly e-mail and search)

And do you know that these other companies are not also sharing your information?

Finally my wish come true. Google voice being a true VOIP. Thank you. I can see this coming

For those who worry about privacy issues, Google now provides a Dashboard where you can manage most Google accounts and services, something I have never seen fro any of the other sites I use:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/...ntrol-now.html