I predict Google and Facebook, successful as they are, will provide the greatest motivation for the growth of Diaspora. People in charge of so much centralized data will be unable to resist using it. They are in an arms race.
Diaspora is small now, but the motivation to use it will only keep growing.
To the average user, having all the data in one place is very useful. Imagine a world where you type your friend's name into Google, and you see the emails you've sent her, photos you've taken, relevant Google+ posts and shared links, and so on. Giving all your data to Google means you get to see it all on one search results page. That's pretty convenient.
(Google is also very very serious about protecting your data. Don't let Facebook's lax privacy let you think Google does the same thing. The only entity you have to fear is the government, and that's true of any internet service provider.)
Not wholly sure what the outcome of the above was, but you could also fear google's employees if you were so inclined. Or anyone that had undue/inappropriate access to/sway with google's employees. They are only many thousands of humans after all.
"Not wholly sure what the outcome of the above was"
Did you actually read the complete article?
"We dismissed David Barksdale for breaking Google's strict internal privacy policies. We carefully control the number of employees who have access to our systems, and we regularly upgrade our security controls–for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective. That said, a limited number of people will always need to access these systems if we are to operate them properly–which is why we take any breach so seriously."
I can tell you that privacy is taken very seriously within the company and that access to PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is quite restricted and access to it is logged and monitored.
I read it some time ago. In the case above, it had to be brought to google's attention and so I would say the logging and monitoring is not invincible. Who polices your log access monitors? I understand that gmail is somewhat distributed and policing remote sites in poorer areas is problematic - especially if one were to consider how much easier it would be to persuade google employees in those areas, should gmail/g+ be offshored in the future.
Should have elaborated: I'm not sure if a civil/criminal proceeding arose out of the case above.
"In the case above, it had to be brought to google's attention and so I would say the logging and monitoring is not invincible."
The answer is right in the blurb that I posted:
"...for example, we are significantly increasing the amount of time we spend auditing our logs to ensure those controls are effective..."
In other words, this incident pointed out a weakness in the system and it is being addressed. From personal experience I can tell you that it is - in fact - being addressed and more controls and monitoring have been rolled out and more are being rolled out. I don't feel comfortable going into details, but from the perspective of a working engineer I have both had conversations about this with senior VPs and have had to do work to comply with the new controls (and have more work planned in the upcoming quarter to be compatible with upcoming controls that are even stronger).
I have a problem with Diaspora that it doesn't add anything useful to the concept of social network. For an end user, it's basically Facebook/Google+, but worse; it doesn't really try to engage user.
When I register as a new user on Facebook or Google+, it is constantly trying to engage me, trying to somehow connect me with new people. If I log in to JoinDiaspora, I just stare at empty screen and my two inactive Diaspora friends, which is exactly what I saw 1 year ago when I tried it the first time. There are no user groups, no way to actually DO ANYTHING on the site.
The fact that the main joindiaspora hub it's still invite-based doesn't help things.
Edit: Oh, I just realized I can search for tags on joindiaspora. Only that it does take about 30 seconds for the results to really start showing; first, I see just empty screen.
I realize that making social network is hard, but diaspora to me still looks like very early alpha.
Diaspora is small now, but the motivation to use it will only keep growing.