Link here:
http://blogs.forrester.com/srm/2009/11/googles-achilles-heel.html

"Sure, people trust Google to come out with cool technology. But do they trust Google with their data and their privacy? Many don’t. Worse, many fear what Google does or could do with the data it aggregates.
...."

And later:

"Google’s reputation is suffering, and it’s brand value is eroding. In 2008, Google dropped off the top 20 list of the Ponemon Institute-TRUSTe survey of most trusted companies, after coming in at #11 in 2007. It remains off the top 20 list for 2009."

Doesn't this "Forrester Blog for Security & Risk Professionals" report sound like too much self-serving piffle? The author presents no other research data for his "conclusions" than comparison of number of hits in Google search results. This is Voodoo Statistics™ at its worst, and we're supposed to swallow it line, hook and sinker?

> If you do a Google search on “Google”
> and “big brother” you’ll get a whopping
> 58.9 million hits. Doing the same for
> “Microsoft” and “big brother” yields
> only 7.1 million. Even more surprising,
> a search on “government” and “big
> brother” results in just 13.4 million hits.
> Using search results as a rough proxy:
> people are more than 4 times more
> concerned that Google, rather than
> the government, is amassing too
> much information about us.

> Doesn't this "Forrester Blog for Security & Risk
> Professionals" report sound like too much self-serving piffle?

Yes.