Comments on: Owned by Google?

By: Property of Google - The Relentless Stream of Consciousness

Property of Google - The Relentless Stream of Consciousness — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:37:07 +0000

[...] The Republic of T has a really interesting article on the rapidly expanding Google empire. From being able to dredge up years-old spur of the moment comments to giving in to censorship in China, many questions can be asked over how much of our information we really want the company to know. But, he asks, what would we be left with without Google? The post is here. [...]

By: Demosthenes

Demosthenes — Sat, 26 May 2007 15:40:01 +0000

Let’s not forget, although I can’t remember the source and Googling is (conveniently) difficult on the subject, that Google Books was never really meant for people. The idea is, and admittedly this is a little wacky, that they’re hoping that at some point that they’ll have an AI to give this information to.

I think that they’re hoping that, someday, Google’s Pagerank system might wake up.

I never though Skynet would end up with such a silly name.

On the other hand, privacy is really worst when there’s differentials involved. If EVERYBODY has no privacy, then does privacy matter anymore?

By: Steve Boese

Steve Boese — Sat, 26 May 2007 00:32:53 +0000

A significant piece of the picture here, for me, is that Google is a corporation. It has hopes and dreams of pursuing the ideals and values of its founders, but the founders no longer own it outright.

So, it will go where its shareholders take it, along with its incredible inventory of data.

Another key piece is the transition from indexing other peoples’ data stored anywhere, to storing the data themselves, and recently to hosting free business-oriented sites. At what point in the future might their shareholders challenge them to take ownership of the data, charging for access to it, or denying access to it if you’re not a paying client?

Google Desktop was the first tool to make me skittish… yeah, it gave me quick, easy access to info inside email messages or documents wherever it might reside. But to continue upgrading to the better and better versions, they were asking for permission to house indexed info about my personal/business computer on their servers.

Suddenly it was clear that my personal computer might not remain so personal unless I was careful.

And, yup, I’m concerned about the possibility that, 20 years down the road, folks may be looking at all of the web searches Google attributed to me a quarter-century earlier. Disquieting, to say the least.

By: BronzeTrinity

BronzeTrinity — Fri, 25 May 2007 23:31:19 +0000

I still love Google. Bad things might happen in the future, they might not. I have enough to worry about so I’ll just let this happen. I might regret it later but atleast I heard the message so I can’t ever say I didn’t know. Who ever thought sitting in front of a computer could jeopardize my future? Weird and scary!

By: terrance

terrance — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:32:36 +0000

For the record, this post was intended to be somewhat tongue in cheek while also showing some of Google’s history. When you put it all together, it’s interesting. That’s for sure.

I’m not “Google-Free,” though. I’m not sure if I want to go through the trouble. But your comment makes me think that it might be interesting to see what “non-Google” sources provide the same service.

There are several, but from what I’ve seen there isn’t yet an web email that beats Gmail.

By: Dennis Foxwood

Dennis Foxwood — Fri, 25 May 2007 19:16:40 +0000

OH GOD. I just realized that I WAS owned by Google! I have to admit I would use google for everything, for questions, advice, images, and even traffic directions! I stopped using Google a few weeks ago, but until I read this article I had no idea what Google could possibly do to me!

I won’t lie, I have a gmail account that I use still, it’s a habit. Using google search engine was a habit as well. I had it set as my homepage for as long as I can remember. I mean, it was simple and easy. Who wouldn’t love it.

But then a friend of mine found a new search engine, hakia.com http://www.hakia.com while doing research for a school paper and turned me on to it. It was better than google in retrieving information, THEN one day I read the hakia blog and found that THEY DO NOT TRACK YOU OR PUT COOKIES ON YOUR COMPUTER, http://blog.hakia.com/?p=91 — it explained everything. Does anyone know if there are other search engines that don’t search you while you search?

In any case, I am Google search free!

The next step is to dump my Gmail account…