Right. Did I say something contradicting that? Google could have decided not to offer application-specific passwords at all, but from any individual user's pe

Right. Did I say something contradicting that? Google could have decided not to offer application-specific passwords at all, but from any individual user's perspective, that's exactly equivalent to just not using them. At least having application-specific passwords gives you the option, and is at least as secure as giving your master password away to every client application. I suppose there is one possible negative consequence to users who opt not to use app-specific passwords: their existence alone removes some of the incentive for client applications to implement 2-factor themselves (which I don't know if Google even has an API for). And sure, it would be nice to have features like access control on a per password basis (e.g., so I could allow Pidgin to access only gchat, but no other part of my account). But the implication that the mere existence of application-specific passwords somehow makes Google's 2 factor auth useless is just wrong.