It's the only place I can be pretty sure a "flashlight app" is actually a flashlight app and not going to ask me for extraneous permissions. It's great.
So rare to see apps without asking for permissions these days. Don't see that with Gplay.
Data mining and machine learning just doesn't sit well with me even though it can't directly be traced back to a individual. At the end of the day all of it will be used for one thing: selling more services and products to me. Convenience comes with a price.
Personally I can't say I took the high ground though I just blocked swiftkey with a firewall and figure that's good enough for me.
That being said, using a closed source application packed with features (also known as "attack surface") as your main input method clearly isn't ideal.