The author is trying to use that relationship to stress a point which stands no matter whether the founder is related to Google founder or not. Take that piece of information out and the point that the author is making still stands. Google has showed us that by luring people to share their private information, it is possible to sell your users eventually. Now you don't have to be related to a Google founder to learn and use that business model. If there was any other company that followed the same practice and didn't explicitly allow me to own my data and delete it from their databases I'd be worried about that company as well. No matter whether they are related to Google or not. The relationship to Google just make me extra worried because of the history of Google.
The point has nothing to do with the relationship between the companies. Like the commenter upthread said, it was a clumsy way to transition into the topic. 23AM could be a Microsoft spin-off, or a Bloomberg company, or a Koch Brothers company: the same points would stand.
The reason Google matters is that it demonstrated that the business model of hoarding and capitalizing on personal information works. The rest of the article spells out ways in which 23AM is already capitalizing on its stored information.
>>> it demonstrated that the business model of hoarding and capitalizing on personal information works
Marketing companies and spammers are using this model all the time. AFAIK most of Google's income is from ads which use very little of personal information (yes, I know about targeted ads but I have a feeling marginal utility of those vs. just having ads on Google which everybody uses is not that high).
