The biggest problem for me is that it simply doesn't matter if I trust today's Google 100%. The fact is that it's a company and eventually the leaders will die, leave or retire.
Even if I claim that Google [today] is 100% pure, honest and ethical, that trust isn't transferable to Google [tomorrow] that will have all of its resources and all of its databanks to mine someday.
And that's a problem. Rationally we shouldn't let them occupy too high a pedestal or trust them too far, or we run the risk of regretting it later, when it's too late.
I think this is an important point that a lot of people miss. An entity having too much power is a concern separate from what you think they'll do with that power: there are always situations where your current understanding of their "morality" will no longer be valid (i.e. coercion by gov'ts as with the NSA, change in leadership as in your example).
People seem to have an intuitive sense of this but don't have the brains to comprehend it so they land up on "Google has the potential to be evil so therefore they're evil now".
Even if I claim that Google [today] is 100% pure, honest and ethical, that trust isn't transferable to Google [tomorrow] that will have all of its resources and all of its databanks to mine someday.
And that's a problem. Rationally we shouldn't let them occupy too high a pedestal or trust them too far, or we run the risk of regretting it later, when it's too late.