Google App Engine: Cashing in on the user data | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com

Not likely to be an entirely objective observer, but a timely reality check anyway

"It's funny that we waged the war to free ourselves of (the) shackles of Microsoft and Hailstorm (a failed attempt to manage personal data)," said David Young, CEO of cloud infrastructure provider and App Engine competitor Joyent. "Now, for some reason, the digerati are anxious to run into exact same thing with Google. It's not evil, but they are tracking users and clickstreams, which (are) the real currency of the Web, and most people don't care. If you can get all data, you can target ads and the user experience, such as showing a site in a different color, depending on user profile."

Google App Engine: Cashing in on the user data | Outside the Lines - CNET News.com