Out of my friends, I’m probably the slowest to adopt Google’s applications, and they give me grief about it all of the time. I just started using Calendar and Docs, and I’ve been using Reader for a little while. (And of course I use their search.)
I have no plans to use my Gmail account (and I use GTalk lightly) because I really don’t feel like letting 1 company know everything about me. I even hesitate to put AdWords or Analytics on my blog because there aren’t many safe havens* on the web anymore.
Now that Google has purchased DoubleClick, I’m even more concerned. I remember when DoubleClick had the reputation that malware makers have today. (Of course that was back when cookies were viewed with suspicion.) It used to be I feared giving all of my personal information over to Google for fear they’d be bought out by a less-than-good company. Now I fear that Google is just slowly becoming a company I don’t really want having all of my personal information!
That being said. Most of Google’s applications rock. Reader rocks (despite missing search). Calendar rocks. And while I don’t like Google Docs as well as OpenOffice and AbiWord, the collaboration aspect is unbeatable.
So we’ll see how much privacy I’ll give up in exchange for Google/DoubleClick’s services… Privacy seems to be the new currency on the Internet.
* By “safe havens” I mean sites that don’t send any of your data to 3rd parties whether through ads or statistics like counters or Analytics.