I have to say that a month or two ago, I would never have have considered leaving Google. Even despite Eric Schmidt's now infamous "maybe you shouldn't be doing it" statement. Their services are that great.

But somehow, the whole Buzz fiasco really forced me to shift my thinking a little bit. Google controls my mail, my phone (via Google Voice), my search, my calendar, my docs, my news...and the list goes on. That's an awful lot for one big corporate entity to know about little old me.

I'm still on Buzz, but when the chaos ensued after it's launch, it was a bit of an awakening for me. The fact is, Google's privacy is at least as good and usually better than most other providers out there. Unless you're going to use the [scroogle.org] , [cuil.com] or [Yauba.com] search engines, Bing or Yahoo are still data mining just as much as Google, even if it's only via your IP address.

The reality is, I'm not about to give up my Gmail, Google Voice, of Google Reader anytime soon. But I have been taking a closer look at www.zoho.com to manage my docs and all the search engines mentioned above just to throw a little of the balance elsewhere.

Also, Firefox is my primary browser, but Google Chrome is a very impressive backup. Over the weekend I deleted it completely (thanks Revo Uninstaller!) and installed a Chromium browser without the Googlization: SRWare's Iron — all the benefits of Chrome without Google.

So, we'll see. Google have not really betrayed my trust yet, but I do have my eye on them and wouldn't hesitate to pull out completely if I ever really felt like they did their users terribly wrong.