It's easier to ask forgiveness later then permission first. I believe Google knew what they were doing. I also believe some engineers that worked on the code raised ethical questions that were later squashed. Google is all about data collection.

I was lucky enough to get one of those before they were told to stop selling them because of Pong copyright violations. http://www.retrotogo.com/2009/11/ebay-watch-pong-clock-by-buro-vormkrijgers-.html It's hanging on the wall behind me right now. Maybe I'll keep it as a retirement fund :) I wonder how long this one has before it suffers the same fate?

Everyone's favorite Joel has an okay solution. Its very user friendly and doesn't require router configs. It's free on weekends. It is based on VNC so it's slow but it gets the job done. I used it to fall back to a restore point on my mom's Windows laptop across EVDO.

https://www.copilot.com/

They'll probably take the authentication check out within the first couple of patches. They did this with UT2003 and UT2004 after enough time had passed the hype of everyone wanting the game had simmered down.