““This naïveté, this barely disguised will to power, this dialectic—Google will do whatever it wants without asking permission, and the results will be so awesome that no one will complain—stands at the heart of the company’s success. Gmail and Google Street View are two examples. The trade-off Google offered customers—allow Google to scan all your email (so they can place customized advertising on it) in return for a gigabyte of free storage—is not something users would have accepted if the company had asked permission up front.””
