It's not 'sort of irrelevant'. The entire thesis of many arguments against Google, and specifically the comment you made above, was that they distribute your pe

It's not 'sort of irrelevant'. The entire thesis of many arguments against Google, and specifically the comment you made above, was that they distribute your personal information to advertisers and other corporate entities. That's just not true. Frankly, if they did that, they wouldn't make very much money. They can demand money from advertisers because they have an information advantage over everyone else. That information advantage gives them an incentive to protect your personal information. After all, if they leaked the information a competitor could use it to formulate competitive advertising profiles, which would drive down earnings. Edit: I wanted to add a few more thoughts since I let it spin around in my mind a bit. I think if you followed the line of argument regarding Google's profit motive as a corporation, you could reach the conclusion that their users' privacy(that is, the distribution of their private information) is a prerogative of theirs to protect. Their viability as a corporation depends on their profiles being the most accurate, and on being under their sole ownership. As such, they are driven to protect them. I would conjecture that the profit motive for their need to protect their information has led to their relatively robust consumer protection ratings by groups like the EFF[0]. -------------- 0: https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013 https://www.eff.org/who-has-your-back-2013