advertising is selling your information to advertisers.
They maintain a demographic profile (arguable: how accurate and comprehensive it is) by way of this line of business, but at no point is that profile sold to advertisers.
At no point has Google, or any other reputable ad network, had a system whereby you can download the information, personal or otherwise, of a few million people.
This is misleading and hyperbolic. Stop it.
If you want a view as to what advertising is actually like and what an advertiser can actually see, go sign up for Adwords and step through the process. I guarantee it is not as sketchy as you make it out to be.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertlenzner/2013/09/23/attveri...
That's not what this article says. This article is about what happens when the government lawfully issues a warrant to obtain somebody's private data, and orders a private company to give them the data. When this happens the company has some rights to recover their costs from the government.
You may not like what the US government is doing here. I certainly don't. But it's still the law, and companies that operate in the US have to comply with it.
It's interesting that you guys figured out how to circumvent the US tax law, by hiding money in tax havens. I guess dodging the NSA warrants is not a priority.
Warrants are comparatively straightforward. The paper says "jump", you say "how high?" or else. In any case, handed a warrant signed by a judge (kangaroo FISA court or otherwise), you hand over the info first and fight it later. Anything else is obstruction.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25910694
https://www.reformgovernmentsurveillance.com/
http://www.nationaljournal.com/tech/google-2015-will-be-the-...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/31/apple-face...
http://dcinno.streetwise.co/2014/11/17/google-microsoft-appl...
There is a significant difference between the two.
When you use mail.doubleclick.com for your email, and www.doubleclick.com to search the web, all from your DoubleClick based phone, its pretty easy to understand the situation.
Personally, I've got no issues letting them build a better profile in return for some of the best web services out there. I owe my career to the excellence of their search product.
At least for me, using DDG is like stepping back into the 90's as far as search result quality goes.