Another unrelated post from the "google is scary" department.
As they say on the Goggle Blog, you can now "Sign up for gmail".
You just have to give them your mobile phone number. "So we know that you're human".
All right, but, are they human?
(mocking voice) "...some new mobile features that will make your Google account more useful and secure"
Bullshit.
What they really mean is "so we can file your goggle account along with your real phone number, and that's gonna give our records a bloody consistency, that's GOLD for us. We have to make a lot of money with your identity and habits. We already did, but, crap, who is ever satisfied anyway?"

(still mocking voice) "It's a way to help us verify that an account is being created by a real person, and that one person isn't creating thousands of accounts".
Yeah, right. Now I know that you create spam just as an excuse to snatch more identity information from people, spy on them, build consistent records on them.