Though I get the feeling google's approach of trying to desensitize me (emailing me about how great I am for traveling to mcdonalds like a slob, and gamifying my use of google maps, for example) instead of shamefully hiding it, is a fair bit worse
If it's "normal" to track every step and shove it in your face, surely you must be paranoid to not let them do at least some of that stuff.
I'm not saying there's no use for the data, and the services provided. It's just the opt-out nature of invading my privacy that I personally don't approve of.
IIRC, you're properly asked, the first time you try to do something, whenever you want to enable relevant tracking - e.g. share location history (e.g. when trying to set up "show my location"), or save voice data on Google servers (e.g. when setting up voice unlocking), etc etc.
I'm not exactly sure about app history and in-app search, though - just honestly don't remember about it. But it could be that user is actually asked at account setup time.
Point is, for many things Google actually properly asks for permission. Guess, it works for them, because timing's relevant. (They probably have ton of invisible tracking as well.)
Apparently there's a feature in the Google Home Mini that allows you to long press on the speaker to bypass the hot word detection ("Ok/hey Google"). Apparently there was a bug on this feature and random sounds could activate the listening of the Home, so it was recording data all day long.