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I legitimately think I've misunderstood your comment, because I'm not following. As I understand it, the anonymous data collection allows Google to improve the maps, gather aggregate user data, etc., but is "anonymous." If you sign into a Google account, then they can track individual usage and better target ads. There's nothing particularly nefarious about this; Google does this with all their services, that's their business. Right?

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Location data is anonymous regardless if you login afterward or not: http://support.google.com/gmm/bin/answer.py?hl=en-GB&top...

Searches, starred locations, etc. are not, though. Arguably, those are more important than location data.

Yes, but they are also not as sensitive as location data and are very useful features.

Who says that they aren't as sensitive? Where I am going to can be just a sensitive as where I am and where I might be thinking about going could be even more sensitive.

The feature may be useful and I'm not saying that it shouldn't be offered but I believe that your assertion that they aren't as sensitive is NOT universally true.

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