An industry has grown up around  fearing intrusion into our lives. The unease is that Big Brother and his all-seeing eye shall invade our movements and personal information.

So should we fear the same from Google? For example, depending on how extensively you use Google services, our overlords from Mountain View may have all of your e-mail, documents, photos, credit card information, voice mail transcripts, and a street view of your house stored on their servers. I am a pretty heavy user myself. I am typing this post from Google Chrome, with tabs open to my Google Docs, Wave account, and Gmail.

I suppose this should frighten me. It certainly does for some. And when you consider the totality of data the company may have on each of us, not to mention stored search information, it could unhinge anybody.

Personally I am not ready to hit the panic button. Part of this is many of the Google critics sound like the same people who think aliens are being probed (or are probing us) in the Nevada desert or who thought Y2K was our undoing (now they’ve moved on to 2012). I think the real issue is what Google ultimately does with all of this data. In fact one potential boost to our privacy is the fact that no one in Mountain View would have the time to sit down and read through billions of Gmail messages or search results.

But in some sense privacy concerns are warranted, which means we ought to hold Google accountable. It ultimately is our information, and we (currently) have the ability to take it elsewhere.  However, the new “connected” era we live in demands a redefinition of privacy. Like it or not, we just can’t look at information the same. This does not mean we toss privacy aside, but that we understand what limits mean in today’s world. More conversations need to happen about what the limits ought to be. Street View is fine. But is Living Room View next?

Each generation must grapple with how it wants to handle technological change. Just as Gutenberg changed writing forever, so has Google’s ability to make our world searchable. Instead of overreacting with fear, we ought to consider how we contain and use our newfound search powers. Maybe we can start by Googling it.