A former CIA agent claims that Google and the CIA have cooperated.  

Whether this claim is true or not, the centralized trove of information maintained by Google is certain an attractive target to mine, even more so than the call log and phone monitoring that we know is going on. Seems like a bright NSA analyst wouldn’t have a tough time getting a job and becoming an inside man at Google even if Google wasn’t a willing participant.

Windows established a software monoculture which represented an attractive target for virus writers. Google is establishing an information monoculture which likewise represents an attractive target for subpoenas and other slippier forms of monitoring.  I’m not saying all such monitoring is a bad thing, but I think we ought to be honest about what what is happening and the tradeoffs we’re making with respect to civil liberties. 

Continuing the analogy, just as the Open Source movement was a reaction to Windows, I’m wondering whether there might arise an “Open Data” movement in reaction to the commercialized accumulation of private data.   Will search engine infrastructure become enough of a commodity that users would migrate from Google in exchange for less advertising  and greater control over their search history?

Search engines like Google lock up end users clickstreams where they can be mined by anyone the search engine chooses, but not by end users themselves. At best, there are walled garden user experiences to get at your search history, but no way to export this data to other services or limit access to it.