Tech News: Google - Recommendation Friend or Privacy Foe? Or Both?

Google Reader recently added some updates - most of which I have appreciated so far. One update is that it now makes recommendations based on your current feed subscriptions and your Google web history. Read more about it in this article.

I mostly read library, education, and technology feeds (and combinations of those three subjects). So, Google Reader recommended these to me today.







Clicking on the View All link gives a longer list with number of subscribers to gauge popularity, and - best of all - the number of posts per week. I have to confess that I have unsubscribed to a couple of feeds simply because I couldn't keep up with the number of posts.




Now, I appreciate the recommendations, but this brings up the privacy question. So, how much does Google know about me...and the scarier part, how much is it sharing about me?

Of course, I also have to confess that I subscribed to several feeds that were recommended because they were from blogs that interested me. Google has lured me in with tantalizing (and scarily spot-on) recommendations. But, is Google evil? How long do I continue to trade privacy for customized services?