From https://www.yahoo.com/now/government-secretly-orders-google-track-151000879.html
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2021/10/04/google-keyword-warrants-give-us-government-data-on-search-users/
This was long seen as a theory of insane people, like the PRISM leak et al. Now it is confirmed to be real, again. I think these methods could be useful to fight real evil, but 'with great power comes great responsibility'.
What reason do we have to believe a corporation built on collecting and abusing your data in any way possible should be trusted with that?
Google, or I should rather say 'Alphabet' (they rebranded their holding) makes most of its money via advertising. I.e. data collection and psychological manipulation (Read some sociopathic 'advice' from a marketeer here.). Their actual services like GCP are rather insignificant. With Google being in a dominant position on almost every single device out there, we now deal with a faceless behemoth, and a giant conflict of interest. We already know about 'dynamic pricing' and 'individual targeting'. Even if the typical use case may not be top secret dystopian actions, profit maximization via psychological mass manipulation is bad enough already.
The mere thought is sickening. It's not about any goal, any values, any ideology. It's just about money above all else.
Both trends and governments change constantly. Corporate follows whatever comes, if it pays.
These are certainly not perfect, but maybe try using these instead of the big G:
I haven't seen any other that have useful search results. There are some small ones like https://www.ecosia.org/, but it's up to you to decide if any of that is real, or just profiting off yet another hype.
Be aware that, for instance, DDG is also owned by a marketeer. And Bing is of course Microsoft.
Google is the biggest concern due to its enormous reach, though. They can correlate you with their sheer endless connections via 3rd parties, and that's hard to block if you want to use the internet at all.
The 'nothing to hide argument' also does not apply. It works in a family, a community, when interests are aligned. Not when the other side's sole mission statement is to exploit you. Everyone, even you, can be the next victim based on random shifts in trends. Less than 50 years ago, you would've got a lobotomy for suggesting PRISM and similar were real. Today, a single 'wrong' statement can be enough to face attempts on your life, or lose your income, options, and force you to suicide. Not for ideals or values - just for the current trend. The data are stored for at least your entire lifetime, so everyone can be profiled in virtually any way.
Even if you counter that you're the most average person in the world who just follows the Zeitgeist, it constantly changes. What was deemed 'right' by established media even just five years ago is now a criminal offence. What once was 'wrong' is now chic. Lawmakers even forced entire languages to change to accommodate trends. Now with 'COVID-19' these threats increased tenfold - there's money to be made, after all. The more pressure, the better for marketeers. Less time for you to mull over a decision. That's a strategy also taught to in-person salesmen. Time/choice constraints, even if only implied, push sales. Or relating to the government, laws. 'Every crisis is an opportunity.'
Even if you are obedient at all times, the changes are fast-paced enough to contradict themselves and turn everyone into a target. Go look up mainstream media via https://archive.org/ (a public archive with snapshots for many popular sites) and see how it changed over the years. Complete 180 degrees, sometimes even just in weeks!
At the very least, you already are a victim of the marketing manipulation anyway. All our purchase behaviours are minutely targeted by legions of psychologists. Constantly analysed and manipulated thanks to practically limitless digital resources. (plaintext has no real limits with today's storage any more)
Take care.
