All the other telecoms have far worse privacy records than Google does. Who were the original companies implicated in illegal NSA wiretapping? Verizon, AT&T, and Bell South. [1] What happened to the CEO of the one company that refused, Qwest? He went to jail on trumped-up insider trading charges. [2]
... and google is racing to catch up. There is a monopoly to be created and rent to be extracted and no matter how "not evil" an organization is, if they play in this sphere, they must adhere to this model or they won't be in business.
Everything you need to know is written in a very nice book, recently published:
[1] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-05-10-ns...
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/09/30...