CNN/Reuters, Paranoia grows over Google's power [edition.cnn.com]

Some interesting, some less interesting information that details Universal Search ( calls it unified though ), the deal and the fears that they'd grab DoubleClick data... etc. The list goes on with everything we know already - some really Google and some really non-Google problems -, but none the less without a single line of official or unofficial comment on as to how they think this is going to be settled with those who don't like it. And then the whole argument is closed with something I'd call completely off-topic. Even if it's true.

Sounds like the actual answer from Google, yet it smells as if it was only to divert attention.

{...} Modern privacy fears, and legal thinking on the topic, date back to the invention of aggressive flashbulb photography and the electronic distribution of tabloid news more than 100 years ago, historians say.

Every major privacy panic since then has occurred against a similar backdrop of rapid technology change, and the psychological dislocations that inevitably follow until a new period of social adaptation and understanding evolves.

"A lot of these things are not about Google in particular but we've become the focus of that debate and as a leading company that's an appropriate role for us to play," says Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel.

If we change the rules on privacy it'll be ALL RIGHT to do all this because it's legal? Or are they saying that - oh we're ONLY the leading ( 70-80% world wide ) search engine, why bug us when others do it too? Or... "oh, don't worry, this is the dawn of a new society. It's allright, you'll get used to it".

I mean I get why they don't want to give up this position.
But... still.

[edition.cnn.com ]