They gave permission to Google to store, parse, tag and understand 16 years worth of family photos of themselves and others so that Google can more accurately present them (and by extension the other people in their photos) with adverts that they believe will result in a higher conversions for their customers - the advertisers.
> Should I be worried?
That really depends if you think the benefits of giving Google such information outweigh the negatives. I personally think that they do not (but then again, I'm not much of a photo person).
> Should my family and friends [be worried]?
We still live in a world where it is socially acceptable for people to take, upload and publish pictures to a variety of 3rd parties without the consent of the subject - even in what would typically be classified as "private" events. I've seen some movement in the direction of explicit consent or "you can take the picture but don't upload that to X" but the truth is that most people don't think too far ahead and frankly probably don't care - should they be worried? Again, that really depends on what they think of Google.
> Should I be worried?
That really depends if you think the benefits of giving Google such information outweigh the negatives. I personally think that they do not (but then again, I'm not much of a photo person).
> Should my family and friends [be worried]?
We still live in a world where it is socially acceptable for people to take, upload and publish pictures to a variety of 3rd parties without the consent of the subject - even in what would typically be classified as "private" events. I've seen some movement in the direction of explicit consent or "you can take the picture but don't upload that to X" but the truth is that most people don't think too far ahead and frankly probably don't care - should they be worried? Again, that really depends on what they think of Google.