Well, this is awkward:

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) announced today that it has entered into an agreement to buy Nest Labs, Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash.

In case you don’t know Tony Fadell, Nest’s CEO, he is the man behind Apple’s iPod. As John Gruber points out, Google’s strong suit has never been producing consumer hardware of the highest quality. This could very well be an attempt to correct this situation.

Other than that, I’ve noticed that there seems to be a general concern all over the Internet regarding Nest’s privacy policies going forward, i.e: whether they will be forced to share their customers' data with Google. Some even go as far as to suggest that this is the actual reason behind the acquisition. I agree with most of it and for the most part, I think the concern is justified given Google’s history. However, I also wonder why we’re all so concerned whenever Google tries to acquire new data sources to drive their ad-targeting technology, and yet we seem to turn a blind eye when other companies do the same. Facebook, for example, knows a great deal more about their users than Google, and not only do their users provide this information voluntarily, but they actually encourage others to do so as well.

I wonder how Facebook managed to sneak so much into our lives, and I also wonder what will happen to it when (not if) their user base finally awakens to this and realizes just how much of their lives they’re sharing with the service.