You can perform these analyses with 'anonymized' data to both observe the broad trends across a huge dataset, and still claim you haven't invaded privacy. With

You can perform these analyses with 'anonymized' data to both observe the broad trends across a huge dataset, and still claim you haven't invaded privacy. With the scale of surveillance data available to Google, this is how they have their cake and eat it too. Once you know that note-taking apps (e.g.) are a hugely growing space, it's easy to use publicly available data to find the startups making a splash. Not once did Google's data tell them Startup X is an acquihire target. And yet, here they are at Startup X's door.