Sure any 3rd party app I install can track me to some degree, but it can't compare my usage against my entire email history, my travel history, recordings of my voice...
GGP was talking about data collected involuntarily, and I was responding to that. Google (or any other company) can't have your entire email history, your travel history, and recordings of your voice without your voluntary participation in one of their services or services of a "partner". Those are way beyond drive-by collection.
There is no way to only use a Google service and also disable drive by collection. And because they're so huge and cover so many categories, that drive by info is more meaningful in their hands than just a dozen random unconnected companies. Because of that, drive by collection by other 3rd party doesn't really concern me as much. They can't do nearly as much with it.
As long as there's a very popular communications service / social networking service / etc., or even a few of them (none of which dominates the entire market), you can't stop other people from turning in your data (unless you have no connections whatsoever in this world, or you and all your connections live in a cave). And if you use any popular service or visit any popular website yourself, your data will be collected, it's only a matter of the level of details.