I just read this story aboutAsk.com devising an aggressive privacy policy. It was couched as a way to compete with Google.

I’ve also heard about Microsoft doing the same (in the case of the Borg, however, I won’t trust them to follow through).

This is not an outbreak of corporate ethics, but rather an attempt to capitalize on a perceived weakness of Google, the Elephant in the room, regarding privacy.

My guess is that this will not make a big difference, and we’ll see relaxation of the new policies over the next 18-24 months.