The possible existence of personal bias for/against a particular company/technology/person is useful. I don't see how implying that the OP is an employee of a competitor of Google is an ad hominem attack, unless you consider disclosing association wich can cause bias/preference in the topic at hand an attack. I see it merely as a framing device.
> people on hn are outraged by NSA spying on us here, but perfectly happy to search, collect, process, organize and publicly disclose "data" about other people here.
Do you really fail to see the difference between an individual using information that has been made voluntarily public too check somebody up and the systematic monitoring of all public and private communications of people around the world by a single entity?
on a side note, people on hn are outraged by NSA spying on us here, but perfectly happy to search, collect, process, organize and publicly disclose "data" about other people here.