Article in Forbes entitled: “If Trust Is Lost, Google Will Crumble“. The article reasons that Google’s business model is built on trust. If users’ perception of the company changes, its business perspectives and profits will come under threat.

“Google’s rise owes much to its engineering prowess (the capacity of its PageRank algorithm to deliver the pages users want), but also the “two kids in a garage” myth: two Stanford students turning a small start-up into a multibillion-dollar business.“

They came under greater scrutiny when they went public, however.  They certainly need to be transparent and and as open as they can be when it comes to the storage, and use of, personal information.