In fact it would probably be a good idea for Google to proactively report/describe some of the technical tradeoffs they have made when it is related to privacy.
Because what most people do is judge based on incomplete information - and Google has more and more problems with its public perception.
Regarding the idea of encrypting all data (I believe you mean that not even Google should be able to decrypt it) before sending it to the servers I see some issues, but my views on cryptography are probably pretty naive.
1) There are laws that force them to hand over data to governments when courts order it - I do not know if they would get away with only turning over encrypted data.
2) They also have business goals - like increasing ad revenue by matching ads to the personal preferences of its users.
3) They have social interactions in most of their products - I don't know how this could work with total encryption.
4) There are certainly some usability tradeoffs to make - like how many times does a user have to enter a password to access his data.
In fact it would probably be a good idea for Google to proactively report/describe some of the technical tradeoffs they have made when it is related to privacy.
Because what most people do is judge based on incomplete information - and Google has more and more problems with its public perception.
Regarding the idea of encrypting all data (I believe you mean that not even Google should be able to decrypt it) before sending it to the servers I see some issues, but my views on cryptography are probably pretty naive.
1) There are laws that force them to hand over data to governments when courts order it - I do not know if they would get away with only turning over encrypted data.
2) They also have business goals - like increasing ad revenue by matching ads to the personal preferences of its users.
3) They have social interactions in most of their products - I don't know how this could work with total encryption.
4) There are certainly some usability tradeoffs to make - like how many times does a user have to enter a password to access his data.