When installing Google Earth today, I was presented with the following before I could use the program:

To continue using Google Earth, you must accept the new Google privacy policies and allow Google Software Update to run in the background on your computer.

This smells funny to me… I like most of Google’s products, but I don’t enjoy having extra stuff forced upon me. While I imagine that Google’s Software Update service is probably fine and will most likely not cause any problems, I would like to at least be presented with an opportunity to opt-out of this.