There’s something particularly creepy about Google Now that not only makes it superior to Siri and other voice- and location-based digital personal assistants, it makes it worrisome to those who take their privacy seriously. For the first time, we get to see the full breadth of how much Google really knows about us as individuals.
It knows us from our Gmail accounts. It tracks our activities online. It knows where we are at any given moment. It’s aware of our real-world activities. In essence, it knows more about us than many of our significant others. That should be a little disconcerting. Strangely, it’s not. People don’t seem to care. Our trust for Google, Apple, Microsoft, and other major companies who know so much about us is high because so many of us stick our heads in the sand and try not to worry about it. Unconsciously we know it’s happening but we block it from our minds and go about our business.
To get an idea of how it really works, here’s a great “explained” video by Marques Brownlee.