People that still believe in google's good will and use it as a measure for the industry are really too big an amount. That's embarrassing for a community with this level of knowledge and deep understanding of IT matters.
Whether you believe it or not, companies like Facebook, Google, Dropbox etc. have so much lose by deceiving the user than Apple or Microsoft and so much to gain from the good will of the user that they will weigh doing good more than bad to keep their business running.
And yet, they do deceive their users, just in subtle ways with plausible deniability (e.g. Facebook profile options related to privacy that are poorly named. Is it just a mistake, or a purposeful decision?)
Indeed. I feel a lot more deceived by the companies you named than by Apple or Microsoft.
With them I know I am paying for a service or product and I clearly know where they take their profit.
With Google and Facebook? Not so much. With them I feel used, induced to some behaviors because that way they can profit more and so on.
I guess that's a lot more deceptive than selling high priced closed products that you can simply decide not to buy.
There's the rub. The business of both Apple and Microsoft is lock-in. Unlike Google, their lifeblood is you buying their next device or next software release. So they are under constant temptation to take away your freedom to choose. Hence iMessage, hence Facetime, hence proprietary locked down exclusive App store, hence massive integration between OSX and iOS. Hence proprietary office formats, file systems that don't interoperate, etc etc. So sacrifice your information and privacy or sacrifice your freedom ...
If you want to be cynical enough nobody is clean, probably not who or whatever generates your income either.
