: IMHO that's where we are heading with google taking over every service imaginable
Well nobody is forcing to use their services ... For search you can use bing when is not down, for email you can use outlook when the windoze bootnet is not being used to distribute viruses or malware, or hotmail if you want plenty of nice ads directed to fulfill your needs and preferences, for video you can still use YouTube, uuuppppsss you right evil Google owns them now, for maps you can use mapquest if you want to get to a place a mile away where you intended to go, ohhh but they are owned by one of the failed-ex-evils, want to take a quick peak at a book, you can still go to your local library, what else, ohhh yes wanna blog ? use wordpress and wait for the poetry to become hacked. Yes, all eggs in the same basket for some stuff is not a good approach, but what's wrong about using services that are relatively nice, regularly available and being constantly improved, and free ? Well, right nothing is free, you are part of their monetization and world domination scheme ... bad boy Eric, bad boy ...
Only if you let them. DBS (don't be sheep)
That's 100% right, if you want privacy just don't make yourself public. I'm more concerned about information that by law is being made public and available on-line (like property records in the US) out of my control, or not very easy to "opt-out". Cheers Jorge