I wondered why I hadn't seen it on my last upload. I thought it was because the upload interface had changed and I was just missing it.

But there is no mention of a privacy issue. They seem to want to focus the feature on the desktop client. Unless we're going to start planting conspiracy theories here, which is pointless. But even assuming they were pre-empting the all-seeing German regulators, that only bolsters the point that stupid regulators are gumming-up new products with made-up ideas of privacy.

My apologies if my SEO phrasing wasn't accurate, oh humble lord of stuff he doesn't actually know too much about. But the point is still valid: Google's algorithm has hundreds of variables and "site popularity" isn't directly one of them (except in the sense that link structure can create de-facto site reputations in a sort of a recursive calculation). If a random blog has my photo and picture, plus the right combination of other variables (link structure pointing to that site, high CTR on an organic search results page, etc) it will rank highly.

That's the whole freaking point of Web search after all. It's only been around for over a decade, though that doesn't seem to stop German regulators or even dumb US regulators from thinking of new ways to slow down technological change.