Even if you know that, you don't really have an option to stop it. You can buy a smartphone with either Android or iOS - and both are spying on the user heavily.

Apple is not even in the same spyware league as Google. Don't try to muddy the waters.

But true, Google can't be stopped as long as software developers and companies continue to sell out for ad money.

"Apple is not even in the same spyware league as Google." - Why? Seriously asking.

They make money from products and are the only remaining big tech company not mining customer data. Google and Facebook are built on the idea of spying on users. Microsoft is moving in that direction.

They've also taken a public stand for privacy, whether out of self-interest or not, that's something Google will probably never do.

>It's up to us in the tech community to protect people from companies that use dark pattern behavior like Google.

Are you a self appointed privacy vigilante or were you elected by the people to protect them? Do you also protect people from Credit Card companies, ISP's, Cable Companies, e-Commerce sites and Cell Phone companies or are you just infatuated with Google?

I definitely also try to protect people from other types of predatory technology companies. When people ask me for recommendations, I generally steer people away from ISPs with poor/slow service, hardware manufacturers which produce low quality equipment, and cell carriers which use deceptive marketing.

I do speak about Google more than average, largely because the volume of fanboyism around the company is so massive, and their PR department generates so much fiction. I don't have to tell you AT&T is a terrible company, you already know, so I don't waste a lot of time doting on it. Combatting the sort of psychological warfare Google employs requires drastically more effort.

This is unfortunately the kind of feedback one can expect whenever Googlefacesoft are criticized.

Kicking the person trying to protect others because of some nitpicking.

Who are you protecting, Google? Must be hard protecting poor G against some individuals on forums.

What dark patterns are you referring to?

Making their ads on a search result page look more and more like their organic search results, for example.

Or making Android Location History on by default and then using it for things like http://searchengineland.com/hood-google-adwords-measures-sto... -- yes, they're reporting anonymized data to the advertisers, but of course they're storing your actual location data, with a well-hidden knob to turn it off.

Doing things people probably wouldn't like done to them if they knew about them with a well-hidden knob to turn it off is fairly dark-patterny as far as I'm concerned.