I’ve waited a few days to post this, because with all things Google, there’s more obscured behind the clouds.

The US congress has a few questions for Google

Some old Congressional privacy watchdogs are nipping at Google’s heels

Whether any of this will improve the internet, privacy or cyber liberties is an open question.

What isn’t debatable is that Google is finally living up to Larry & Sergey’s grad school yearnings – they want to know you better than your mother, or your therapist does.

And as usual, The Register has the best take on the whole show.

Google finally admits it wants to OWN YOU

Big changes to Terms of Service due in March

Posted in Platform, 25th January 2012 10:14 GMT

Mountain View’s Chocolate Factory is putting its vast userbase on notice of major changes to its privacy policies.

Come 1 March the 350 million people worldwide who have Gmail accounts, for example, will no longer be able to use that service in isolation of other Google products they browse to online.

That’s because the company’s Terms of Service are changing.

Some will argue that Google is merely doing some neat housekeeping by cutting and shutting the majority of its 70 privacy policies into one clean explanation of what will happen with the information users input into the company’s array of products.

Others might note that these privacy tweaks are coming ahead of any public antitrust battle Google potentially faces on both sides of the Atlantic where formal regulatory probes of the world’s largest ad broker are already well underway.

…

Google is reasserting that ALL of its products relate back to its search estate. In other words, Page’s crew are insisting that the company only really offers one service online.

via Google finally admits it wants to OWN YOU • The Register.