Short post today, but one that I hope makes an important point.

You could blame my recent one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn — from the most popular smartphone OS of the day to one less so — on my shameless love affair with the folks who do word of mouth marketing for Nokia. But you’d be wrong.

The real reason why I no longer use Android on a day-to-day basis is right there in the screen grab above, the Terms of Service for Google’s native search app for S60.

If I don’t want Google to log my location, the sound of my own voice and who knows what else I simply click the button under ‘reject’. The only negligible effect is that I can no longer search the Internet from my E73‘s homescreen. That’s it.

Try doing anything useful on a stock Android device without being logged in to a Google account and see how far you get. I won’t argue for a second that Android isn’t a powerful platform capable of wondrous things; I’m just saying that I value my privacy more.

Oh, and that whole “what’s the worry if I’ve nothing to hide” argument? To me that’s an excuse for people who are lazy or have lost all hope of maintaining any kind of control over their personal information online.

I’m not telling you to switch to S60 — or any specific mobile OS for that matter — just letting you know that Google doesn’t have to own your ass if you don’t want them to.