Posted in War on Privacy

Google touts tighter integration between Gmail, Search, Drive, and other offerings

Everything shall be indexed! Quoting from an announcement made today by Google:

Ever had trouble checking your flight’s status on the go because it meant digging through your email for the flight number? Or wanted to just quickly see whether your package would arrive on time, without having to look up the tracking info first? You’ve told us it would be much easier if you could skip the fuss and just ask Google.

Soon you’ll be able to find this info instantly in Google Search if it’s in your Gmail, Google Calendar or Google+. For example, just ask or type, “What’s my flight status?” or “When will my package arrive”?

Over the next several days, we’ll be rolling this out to all U.S., English-speaking users on desktop, tablet and smartphone, with voice search (so you don’t have to type).

The announcement should have – but did not – go on to say: And we won’t ask your permission, either. We’re just going to do it, because that’s how we roll here at Google. Your privacy is not important to us. Your data is. At Google, we view *you* and your personal information as our most important asset, and we are constantly working to monetize *you* so we can bolster our bottom line. Ain’t data mining grand? Think about all the money we can make with your cooperation!

We foresaw this kind of integration by default across Google’s offerings years ago. Google claims, of course, that this is a “pro-user” change. But they’re really just offering up excuses for imposing new defaults on everyone. If you don’t like personalized search, you have to opt out or sign out, because if you do nothing and you have a Google account, the Big G will mine your data to its heart’s content.