So true, but there's a huge difference between lots of data collected overall, and lots of data being held by a single company, especially one which is a world leader in cross referencing to extract meaning.

By cross-referencing between, say, the contents of your text messages and your approximate location, they can deduce a lot more then either alone.

That's just two things. Now expand to include all your work and friend IM message contents, search terms, chosen results, referrer links, GPS, photos, emails, how long you spend reading some things compared with others, even voice call contents... When lots of people use all of Google's services, that's a lot of incredibly detailed personal data they have all at once. Much more than the police have!

I like Google, I really do, and use some of their services. I just thing it's a serious human security vulnerability to have so much cross-referencable detailed activity and communications data funelled through one data system.

I wonder if people would feel differently if the Google/Android phones were called Doubleclick.net phones or some other seedier sounding behaviour tracking company.