Actually that's not true. "The cookie banner thing" you refer to was an incident where Google exploited a security flaw in WebKit...
Why does Google need to exploit a flaw in Webkit? It's more their software than Apple's these days.
And yeah, that Safari incident was a bit underhanded, and Google should've known better than to try and bypass browser security settings. Thing is, they weren't doing it to get at
your data, rather that analytics you generate. There is a big difference between the two.
Well that's the big question isn't it: Whether the data is actually kept anonymous.
There are some things that aren't anonymous. I can't remember what it was, but it was fairly innocuous from what I remember. And they do keep some information on you for up to 9 months before whitewashing it.
But think of this. Google, Apple, Facebook, everyone has been scrutinized for any potential breach of privacy. Apple and Google both had to stand in front of congress over an issue we both mentioned previously. And even after that, Google had to face down an antitrust hearing only a few months back.
Thus far, the government hasn't had that much to complain about. When something bad happens, they tend to get called on it. So if the government and all the various privacy watchdogs don't have too severe an issue with what Google does, what makes you think they're doing anything super shady, or lying about what they're saying?
And lastly, remember...Google doesn't sell your data.
