My reading of the privacy policy is that Google isn't asking for any new rights here, they're just being explicit about what they plan to do with data they collect from you. For some people, the explicit enumeration will make them say, "whoa, time to get out of here!" And that's what Google wants; they don't want to surprise their users with features that may make users feel unsafe online. (Remember, Google tries to keep customers by providing great products, not by locking them in. If you want to stop using Google Reader, or whatever, you can export your data to a usually-standard file format, and join a competing service instead. That's pretty awesome, considering they make no money when you stop using their service.]
You can chalk this up as "evil", but it's just the opposite. Google makes search results better when they can track you, so they want you to know that you're being tracked and how to opt out. Yes, tracking is scary and the ideal situation would be not tracking anyone ever. But that's how pre-Google search engines worked and those search engines barely worked at all. So I don't see how Google can provide a search engine without keeping some of your data around. They know this and want you to know, too.
What you should be afraid of are the companies that try to disguise what they do with your data. Someone is selling my name and address to companies trying to sell me credit cards and aluminium siding. I doubt it's Google.
You can chalk this up as "evil", but it's just the opposite. Google makes search results better when they can track you, so they want you to know that you're being tracked and how to opt out. Yes, tracking is scary and the ideal situation would be not tracking anyone ever. But that's how pre-Google search engines worked and those search engines barely worked at all. So I don't see how Google can provide a search engine without keeping some of your data around. They know this and want you to know, too.
What you should be afraid of are the companies that try to disguise what they do with your data. Someone is selling my name and address to companies trying to sell me credit cards and aluminium siding. I doubt it's Google.