My Love and Fear of Google - The Conundrum

EFF: Breaking News: "Google Copies Your Hard Drive - Government Smiles in Anticipation

I am personally struggling with this, as I obviously love Google to death, but all these issues are very big. There are people like me who have given up my privacy in things like blogging and by obviously using Google, but other people like my parents will definitely not be thinking this or reading these things. So how will they know.

So anyway, this user is in a bind - love-fear relationship with Google. I imagine there are going to be millions of articles on this subject and it's going to be a miserable PR campaign for Google. It's ironic because their whole deal is that they will be good and do no evil and here all these groups are saying, yes, but maybe they are evil, or at least be careful with them because you shouldn't trust them, particularly because of the government's interest in them as this article below states.

Consumers Should Not Use New Google Desktop

San Francisco - Google today announced a new 'feature' of its Google Desktop software that greatly increases the risk to consumer privacy. If a consumer chooses to use it, the new 'Search Across Computers' feature will store copies of the user's Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google's own servers, to enable searching from any one of the user's computers. EFF urges consumers not to use this feature, because it will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who've obtained a user's Google password.

'Coming on the heels of serious consumer concern about government snooping into Google's search logs, it's shocking that Google expects its users to now trust it with the contents of their personal computers,' said EFF Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. 'If you use the Search Across Computers feature and don't configure Google Desktop very carefully—and most people won't—Google will have copies of your tax returns, love letters, business records, financial and medical files, and whatever other text-based documents the Desktop software can index. The government could then demand these personal files with only a s"