I've been of the opinion that google's been what you refer to as a BAC for a while now - they just have a really good PR department.
Look, I don't mind in game ads at all as long as they aren't intrusive. If I'm going to be ignoring a loading screen or an in game bilboard, it might as well be one with a picture of Juicy Fruit on it. Some will disagree, but whatever, in game ads aren't going to go anywhere. We do, however, have to draw a line, and for me its right here.
The demographic for ingame ads is broken down enough as it is, this isn't neccesary. You know I like videogames, know I don't hate the genre for whatever game I'm playing, know I either have a console, pc, or whatever, and know that I have a bit of disposably income among other things. That's already a prettty prime and specific audience demographic for any advertising endevour. Any more is uneccesary for the level of intrustion that they're trying to get away with.
We let them scan our emails and they got bolder. So they're compiling profiles based on our gaming habits. "Oh, what? Google released a desktop office suite? awesome! Yeah, I guess it kind of sucks that it phones home every time I write an essay, but it can't be any more intrusive then when they phoneing home every time I tried to organize a game of Monopoly Online". "Sweet, a Google operating system? Awesome! Why would I care about the fact that it records everything I do? Do No Evil Man, Do No Evil." "Hey, where'd all this junk mail come from?"
Before anyone accuses me of a logical fallacy here, I'd like to state my case: It's a legitimate slippery slope as it deals with the desensitising (sp?) nature of information collection rather than an illegitimate attempt to show how a course of action can and will lead to a conclusion which is not directly and logically related.
Anyways, that's my main problem; the desensitization (sp this time?) towords data collection. We should probably make it known we won't have any of it before companies start looking for more and more ways to pry into our personal lives. That and while google seems like a perfectly moral company now, god knows where they will be in 5-10 years....and you can bet they'll still have all that info.