Re:Why does this surprise anybody? (Score 1)

No news here indeed. First, they have introduced their toolbar - anybody who'd think they don't collect data with it is very naive. Then there was personalized search - again it gets enabled only when you sign up. However, Google users are a vast group of people whose tech savviness varies a lot - there will likely be people who don't give it a thought. The right thing to do for Google would be to warn the users of their toolbar and personalized search about their data collection policies, how this data will be used, etc. I don't support the talk of Google being evil tho as this is just a company in business - it is neither evil nor nice - it just does what's best in its own interests - considering their main source of making money being advertising - they serve more targeted ads by knowing better who they serve those ads to - so they just find ways to get to know their users as much as they can.