Here lies the benefits of handing your personal information over to a company like Google.
To me, it's always been a choice, no matter which service I use (paid or free) I am not going to naively believe that for one second my information won't be "abused." When someone says, "XYZ is collecting data on you" the obvious [and always correct] retort is "so is your XYZ provider; or at the very least the NSA is making them." The questions should rather be "who is going to do the least harm with your data?", "who will try to help you the most with the data that they have collected about you?" and "who will make a competent effort to fight for your privacy on your behalf?" From what I have been reading lately, Google gets the best scores - which is why they will continue to trusted with what I choose to share over the internet. Technology should get a job done and then get out of the way as quickly as possible - if "whoring" out my personal information to someone is the path to putting technology back into its rightful place, then so be it.
To me, it's always been a choice, no matter which service I use (paid or free) I am not going to naively believe that for one second my information won't be "abused." When someone says, "XYZ is collecting data on you" the obvious [and always correct] retort is "so is your XYZ provider; or at the very least the NSA is making them." The questions should rather be "who is going to do the least harm with your data?", "who will try to help you the most with the data that they have collected about you?" and "who will make a competent effort to fight for your privacy on your behalf?" From what I have been reading lately, Google gets the best scores - which is why they will continue to trusted with what I choose to share over the internet. Technology should get a job done and then get out of the way as quickly as possible - if "whoring" out my personal information to someone is the path to putting technology back into its rightful place, then so be it.