No, Google is different. And they've admitted it. They scan every email that goes through gmail for keywords so they can target advertise to you. My personal accounts on other services are not scanned for keywords, only for malware. How would you feel if your postal service opened every piece of mail you receive and then targeted you with specific ads based on what they found? I realize that email is not a secure medium, but I expect some level of privacy with emails. You don't get that with GMail. Microsoft made fun of it here.

It's also the arrogance of Google. To blatantly say other companies were buying up patents simply to target them. What would Google have done if they had won the Novell and Nortel patents? Release them to the public domain? Doubtful. They would charge to use them. Google threatened lawsuits and asked the US Federal Government to investigate. But then the truth came out and Google probably has nothing left to do than pay the licensing fees. I have to agree with this analysis of it.

Google's mantra of "Do no evil" should be changed to "Do no evil unless it helps us" because their tactics of late bear this out.

>If that going to be your approach you'd better close every account.
>Any business operates in the same way.