If you go to www.google.com, there are only 16 links. One of them is Privacy. If you click on it, you will see policies, explanations, and even freaking videos. If you don't care then it's not evil.

If the N900 actually ships in the next couple of weeks and I decide to get one, is Nokia evil because they sell it for more than Amazon and their site doesn't say that I could get it cheaper at Amazon? If people don't care that they're paying more then it's not evil.

You wouldn't... Or would you? I'm sooo disappointed! - You're evil!

(No, actually you're not, because I don't care.)

Geez. I was hoping for Elizabeth Hurley and I get that?

Each time you pay cash at the shop, the friendly lady hands you counterfeit money for change because she doesn't like your face.
You could have checked, there are several ways to do so.

But you don't care.

Therefore, it's not evil.

Cool.

You know, sometimes we define something as evil even if the individual who is affected wouldn't even notice or maybe doesn't consider it evil. We do so because we think it harms our whole society, our moral standards or maybe only has potential to do harm in the future.

What kind of anarchy are you referring to? TCP/IP? Usenet? Phreaking? The subversiveness of Internet Exploder? The increasing government meddling with technology? TOR exit nodes being monitored by BKA? Seriously, Mielke dreamed of the data mining Google performs, and even dictators and psychopaths are democratically elected. After 2 nukes humanity did not learn. Things first have to go very wrong (again) before humanity may learn.

The University I went to had an honor code: you could not lie, cheat, or steal. The friendly lady violates this, Google does not.

Do you maintain a contact list for your email account and phone? Did you ask the people on it if you could put them on it? Did you inform the people on it that they are on it? Are you evil?

you can't be sure of that anymore. and even if you could, consider this:

google has already accumulated cosmic amounts of data about each and every one of his users. that's a huge DB with personal data, trends, conversations, intimate knowledge, insider knowledge, and the possibility to extrapolate things for market researches, product placement, but also demographic issues and tons of other stuff.

now, google, as big and powerful as they already are, WILL one day start lobbying YOUR government for legal use and distribution of this data, and one day get that law passed, reducing privacy to zero. (you're 90% there already btw)

it's not about single pieces of information, or me (an individual) spying on you (an individual).
it's about a company that'll probably survive it's founders, with other people taking over who might not be so keen on a goody-goody image. but then google already will hold so freaking much information it's basically up to their goodwill not to abuse it. and i am not comfortable with that, because at some point, someone WILL want to abuse it. it's human nature, greed is part of it.
not to mention one or several google employees could go astray...


seriously, i am time and time again shocked how little people care about these things. they say they haven't done anything wrong or got nothing to hide... well, they're wrong!

take this simplest of all examples: you get a serious disease some day. it might be lethal or not, rare or not, doesn't matter.
you google about it, write gmails to your friends about it. now, google has that information. and they don't delete it. they mine such data.
now imagine, what a huuuge set of mined data like this would be worth to big employers. they could filter out candidates unbelievably easy, even if your disease wasn't serious, you're not even being considered for the job, and you never know what happened.

even if stuff like this doesn't happen right now (examples from asia show google is not too far from it), it WILL happen in the not-so-far future if we aren't careful.

The "I'll send your bits if you send mine" kind.

You've put your finger on the privacy I'm worried about. Insurance companies not only know you're interested in a disease, they know the actual diseases you have been diagnosed with, what treatments you are undergoing, what drugs you are taking and what drugs you have taken in the past, not to mention all your personal and financial information. I worry far more about that than I do about Google.

you should not only be worried, you should actively be doing something against it!

in my country, we're not quite there yet. my insurance company knows nothing about my medical history apart from what i tell them.