"I don't think this "benchmark" is that relevant anymore...If a company that tracks everything receives a "top privacy rating", I don't think the benchmark used

"I don't think this "benchmark" is that relevant anymore...If a company that tracks everything receives a "top privacy rating", I don't think the benchmark used is very useful." I think it is a useful comparison, but only part of the picture as you say. For example, Google gets high marks in this EFF survey but, as you rightly point out, you also have to balance that against the amount and type of data that Google (and other companies) collect about users. I don't doubt that Google has a strong committment to security. But security and privacy, although closley related, are not the same thing. Even if Google stops the NSA snooping on their data, that doesn't stop Google from continuing to collect as much data about you as they possibly can. Google's comments relating to the NSA revelations have all been couched in terms of security (but not a word about privacy or the volume of data they collect). So yes, better security will protect your data from government eyes, but it won't necessarily stop companies collecting as much data as they can about you. Just to be clear, there's no comparison between Google collecting user data and a secretive Goverment agency with questionable motives and intentions collecting data - one is obviously an order of magnitude worse. But that doesn't mean it's fine for companies to track users unhindered just because they're not the NSA. And Google arguably tracks more than anyone else. Isn't it time we also had transparency reports from these companies about the data they collect?