You know, I have a very similar attitude toward Facebook's Beacon. I figured, there's no way they didn't see it coming. In fact I can point to an article that did, in fact, see it coming, before it happened.
I never forgave Facebook, because I'm assuming their apology was disingenuous (and indeed they continue to do things that are disrespectful of their users, so I feel like I made a decent call). Boycotting Google is way harder, not sure what to think. Is this as bad as Beacon? Was it as obvious that it was going to blow up in their face?
I think that the difference here is that Google, publicly at least, says lots of the right things about privacy. They seem (again publicly) at least genuinely concerned about privacy. Whereas FB (and Zuckerberg in particular) has made many public statements about how annoying people's privacy is.
That's why I think Google's apology is coming from a sincere place, and the mistake was simply driven by an abundance of ambition and a lack of caution (cause by hopeless naivete). FB's apologies always rang hollow because we know Zuckerberg is tremendously aware of the issues (because he's informed of them in nearly every interview) and simply doesn't care.
And I should add, to your use of the word "publicly", I'll admit that there's no way to know what's in their hearts, but if they all at least behave as if they were sincere, it's all I could really ask for.
I never forgave Facebook, because I'm assuming their apology was disingenuous (and indeed they continue to do things that are disrespectful of their users, so I feel like I made a decent call). Boycotting Google is way harder, not sure what to think. Is this as bad as Beacon? Was it as obvious that it was going to blow up in their face?