Google could easily protect the privacy of their users but it would need to be a directive from the top down and they would have to actually mean it.

All this is is an attempt to show themselves as the good guys relative to Facebook whereas Google is in many ways just as bad, just along different axis. At heart both Facebook and Google are advertising scum of the very worst kind that hold the world hostage with some free functionality.

The problem with Google is that that functionality is of a grade that it is hard to get around them, Facebook you can do without just fine.