"I dont particularly like how google has gone from being a great search engine to being this huge insane money and data slurping machine, but as long as one can

"I dont particularly like how google has gone from being a great search engine to being this huge insane money and data slurping machine, but as long as one can avoid it, then, does it matter?" The problem is that you can't avoid Google. How many websites use Google Analytics? How many serve fonts via Google Fonts? Or serve JQuery via Google? How many sites serve up ads from Google's ad network? Google's tentacles reach every corner of the web. Android lets Google track you across mobile and tablet. Now they can track you on desktop with ChromeOS which potentailly tracks everying you do in the OS. Some people are fine with this if it means a more personalised service. I find the privacy implications horrendous. Consider the following scenario: you visit a site with Google Anlaytics, then a site that serves up fonts through Google, then a site that serves JQuery via Google. Then you sign into GMail to check your email and immediatly sign out after. Then you vist YouTube (signed out). Does Google join up these journeys? We don't know. Google's privacy policy is deliberatley vague about what they capture. People simply aren't aware of the amount of tracking that goes on. It's clearly not in Google's interest to be placed under greater scrutiny over what they track and record. The tech community are happy to oblige, giving Google an easy ride on such matters.