Really? That's the only bar? So you're going to trust any company who isn't in this business without even reading & comparing their privacy policy or looking at their past history?
I also have to say I don't understand what you guys' true fear (read: threat model) is. It seems like for Google your criterion is "if they could potentially keep such data, they're automatically dangerous (doubly so if their name is 'Google')", whereas for anyone else not in the advertising business your standard suddenly changes to "I don't care what data they have, as long as I don't see evidence of active misbehavior". To me this sounds like what you really fear is personalized advertising itself rather than an actual privacy or security breach, which doesn't entirely make logical sense considering what the dangers of each of them are.
I personally try to advocate for good privacy education at places of work, study and play usually with a combination of a) the naritive / context, b) Provide simple examples (of why it probably matters), c) Explain with metaphors, and d) Give some simple advice where possible.
It’s not a perfect strategy but I think it does noticeably help lift the awareness bar.
You are welcome to believe that Google is just actively causing harm. But I don't understand why you'd specifically do this for them but not other businesses.
Especially since people asking that generally know nothing about the people who criticize a thing, and what else they might criticize in other contexts. It's not like they're busy criticizing some bigger evil and criticism of $thing_under_current_discussion blocks their noble work. At worst they're doing nothing, yet expect others who are doing something -- even if that's just making one decision against one product or company, rather than zero, and making one comment about their own personal actual stance, instead of about synthesized hypothetical persons -- to take some time out of their day to answer pointless "questions".
