Sorry, what? When I write an email or text on my Android the entire text gets sent to Google? Even if I decide not to send it? The issue is that, when using Siri, the full recording is sent back to Apple's servers where they perform processing. This could allow them to do spy stuff with what people falsely assumed was privat einformation, since a lot of people don't realise that anything you tell Siri you also tell Apple HQ.

Now, are Apple doing evil with what Siri sends them? Probably not. but when you're the CIO of a billion dollar tech company you probably don't want to base your company's technological future on "it's probably fine".

Wait a second, surely the way that the other person expresses interest is by flirting? Right?

I don't tick that box, and I added an exception to AdBlock for *.slashdot.org. I still don't see any adverts here, because I won't add a known malware distributor to my NoScript whitelist. I'm not strictly against advertising, but I'm not going to just run any crap coming from anywhere to give away a few pennies a month. I try to subscribe but I won't use PayPal and nothing else comes up on the subscription page. I told them about this, but got no response. So, since they don't seem to want my money, I haven't yet flown a few thousand miles just to shove a wad of cash through the letter box.

One major difference between Google and facebook is that Google sells your eyeballs to advertisers, facebook sells your information.

Whether you think that makes a large ethical difference is up to you, but the practical implications are significant -- essentially, Google acts as a black box in between advertisers and users, which is a system I massively prefer. Facebook will literally sell your name and address. I think that this is a significant improvement.

Of course, the other point is the question of trust. Can people trust Google? Maybe. I do, but I'm very careful about it, and I believe a lot of other people are too. The moment they start locking down services or locking in users, or the moment I actually find them doing something 'evil' (and no, accidentally leaving Kismet on a default setting does not count) I'm leaving them completely. Facebook, however, I don't trust at all with anything. That's trickier, since I live in a different city from where I grew up and a lot of my friends still live, and frankly facebook is in common usage, but then it's a trade off. I definitely don't put anything on facebook that I wouldn't say on national TV.

Another reason Google is in my good books, at least, is because they look at the long term. They want more people browsing the web as a general business goal, so they develop an awesome browser -- not necessarily to win the browser wars, but to make all browsers better. Then they also make it open source. Then they build driverless cars. Then they provide the best free mapping system in the world. Then they add satellite / overhead imagery to it.

Google might not be perfect, but they're by far the best multinational corporation I've ever come across.