I assume by now you've all heard about the U.S. government program named PRISM, where the National Security Agency (NSA) claimed to have direct access to Google, Yahoo, Verizon, etc servers of data.
Google, Yahoo, Facebook and most of the technology companies have come out to deny any involvement in such activities.
You can read Larry Page's post on the Google blog:
First, we have not joined any program that would give the U.S. government—or any other government—direct access to our servers. Indeed, the U.S. government does not have direct access or a “back door” to the information stored in our data centers. We had not heard of a program called PRISM until yesterday.
He goes on and on ending, "the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish."
So interesting.
Anyway, you have Googlers all over the place defending Google on this acquisitions. Heck, it was so funny to see Google+ on Friday afternoon. Hundreds of Googlers sharing the Google blog post or Larry Page's post on Google+. I even made an animated GIF to share Larry's reaction and posted it on Google+.
Want to read more? See Matt Cutts defend Google at Hacker News. In one post Matt wrote:
Really? You don't see any difference between the denial posted by Google's CEO vs. the way that (say) Verizon responded?
He posted six times there over the weekend.
Honestly, I have not been following this too closely. Nor do I care that much. I share everything about myself online, so I don't obviously care much about my own personal privacy. But I totally get why others do.
Forum discussion at Google+, Google+, Hacker News and WebmasterWorld.