Is Google Evil?

[Zombie]

"Don't be evil" is Google's informal corporate moto. But if you Google this question you get 540,000 hits suggesting, at the very least, some concerns.

 

When Google first launched it was brilliant. A blank screen with a box. You typed in your search words and you got the result. Fast. Speed and simplicity. A winner. No wonder it took over the World. But of course it has managers. And developers. They (and all other software suppliers) see it as their job to change things. If they don't change things:

1. how can they justify their existence?

2. they won't "leave their mark" (a bit like dogs peeing on lamposts).

 

So now we have an increasingly cluttered and complicated Google page. With things moved around regularly. Don't know about you, but if everytime I went to the kitchen for my favourite snack I discovered someone had been "changing things around" to "improve the user functionality" so now it takes me 10 minutes to find my high salt, high fat, nutritionally valueless snack items, then I'd be pretty ****ed off.

 

And all the time Google is gathering more and more data about us and spreading its tentacles more and more into every aspect of our lives: Gmail, Chrome, Android, Maps, Wallet - there's no end. And we love those tentacles. Until they throttle us.

 

But it's not just Google doing this.

 

We know information is power. And we know power tends to corrupt.

And now we have Google's new Privacy Policy.

So should we be concerned?

If so what action should we take?

And are there realistic alternatives to Google that are as good? (er, that's "good" as in not bad ... I mean as in not "not evil" )

Edited February 6, 2012 by Zombie

[TetRefine]

If you don't like it, don't use it and they can't gather information on you. Its the same when people complain about Facebook. Its a free service, and since its free they have every right to do as they see fit. No one is forcing you to use it.

[Zombie]

Fair point. If it was just products you could consciously choose not to use or buy. But the spread of activities and the ability to combine data mean it's not so straightforward e.g. we don't choose to be mapped (a gift for burglars: http://www.mypropertyguide.co.uk/articles/display/10098/using-property-websites-to-plan-the-perfect-burglary.htm, and bad things have happened to some people opting out: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11827862), and we don't choose to have our personal data sniffed: http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/11/google-gives.html. I would prefer a search engine that just used targeted advertising based on search criteria. So, perhaps I should reword my question: "are there realistic alternatives to Google that are as good" and that just use targeted advertising for their revenue?

[Gene Splicer PHD]

- Turn off cookies for google.com.

- Use a privacy add on in your browser to isolate google from your history.

- Use incognito browsing

- Install adblock and block *.google.com in it.

 

http://duckduckgo.com/ is a pretty decent search engine that doesn't track a thing.

 

Google's mission is to sell ads, not do good search. Your data is their content. Every time you do a google search, you add to their content, their ability to sell an ad to someone wishing to advertise.

 

Generally speaking, services like Facebook, Google, Bing etc. aren't at all "free". You don't pay a dime, but you give up your right to privacy. I don't have a serious facebook page, I have one I use for my business marketing. I've turned down all of Googles privacy settings.

 

Are they evil? I don't think so.. Are they in cahoots with the NSA, the FBI and just about any other federal agency interested in data mining? I don't doubt it at all.

[Zombie]

Interesting. Apparently during the Doubleclick acquisition Google promised the Federal Trade Commission to introduce improved user privacy such as "crumbling cookies" and a "privacy dashboard" to help consumers understand the functionality of their user settings, but never followed up on this. Thanks for the duckduckgo suggestion. I'll give it a try

[W_L]

Well, let's see:

 

We first had Apple as the evil computer company, then they fell apart in the 90's to just come back to life and enslave us with the Ipod, Iphone, and Ipad along with all the nice software from Itunes

 

Microsoft tried to be the biggest bad ass in the world and web, buying everyone out. Then, they got sued and started falling back down to ground level. They are somewhat evil, charging hefty fees for their X-Box online content, but they are no longer super villain material.

 

Now we've to two newcomers: Google and Facebook

 

Who is more evil? Who will actually succeed to take over the world(wide web) ?

 

Google is now so into their software and hardware, it is not even funny. Facebook is heading down that direction and I wouldn't be surprised if Zuckerberg is planning on making his own tablet soon with how much money Facebook is going to get on the initial public offering.

[Gene Splicer PHD]

Google's infrastructure is massive. I mean tremendous, tremendous horsepower, such as this

. This guy guesses that Google has about 1.8 million servers in 12 datacenters. Each server is a tray based dual core (4 processor) server with 16 GB of RAM and a 2 TB hard drive, and the design has been tweaked down to the milliwatt for power consumption.

Ostensibly this is to power search so that results are returned very fast. It doesn't take much of a stretch to see that that kind of infrastructure would be considered extremely important by the government, and I'm far from a tinfoil hat guy.

 

Microsoft's infrastructure is equally large and Apple is currently building a new datacenter for icloud.

 

It's all coming together...

[Merlin]

Evil is a very strong word.

 

Google is a company existing in a (thankfully) thriving capitalism. It's good when it returns profit to shareholders, it's evil when it does not.

 

It's really as simple as that.

[Zombie]

It's good when it returns profit to shareholders, it's evil when it does not.

 

It's really as simple as that.

 

That's an interesting point of view. If anyone wishes to discuss that view further can I suggest the thread is moved because then, I think, it will be moving into the realm of another place ...

[advocatus diaboli]

Google isn't evil.

 

Are they still following their guidelines and aspirations from when they went public? No.

 

Not following your own rules doesn't make you evil.

[Y_B]

Walmart's evil.

It keeps crushing my dreams of opening up a Bangmart.

[W_L]

Walmart's evil.

It keeps crushing my dreams of opening up a Bangmart.

 

YB

 

Can someone give me some numbers (I could ask Blue, but he's busy in the other place right now ) on the effectiveness of Bing versus Google?

 

I know Microsoft was touting bing as their answer to google, but it hasn't really made me want to switch. I actually am a bigger Microsoft hater now than I was before Bing, because the search engine sucks for me anyway.

 

I've given up being a rich hipsta Apple guy, so my only choice is to be one of the many droids

[advocatus diaboli]

I don't recall solid numbers at the moment, but I think Bing is sitting around 30%. They've mostly been cannalizing Yahoo's search market share, which is also powered by Bing.

 

Bing in terms of market share, is doing, eh.. okay. Financially, it's costing Microsoft hundreds of millions (if not billions) per quarter.

[Rilbur]

And now we have Google's new Privacy Policy.

 

Yes, we have Google's new, single privacy policy, replacing GMail, Google Search, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google This and Google That's individual policies.

 

Nothing evil there just because it's 'new'.

 

Google is big. This means that, sometimes, something slips through the cracks. Sometimes, some small part of it doesn't behave, and the rest gets blamed.

[Gene Splicer PHD]

I don't recall solid numbers at the moment, but I think Bing is sitting around 30%. They've mostly been cannalizing Yahoo's search market share, which is also powered by Bing.

 

Bing in terms of market share, is doing, eh.. okay. Financially, it's costing Microsoft hundreds of millions (if not billions) per quarter.

 

Well, and then there was the whole "Bing using Google search results" thing...not sure if that's still relevant.

 

Bing sucks. And I'm a Microsoft partner/advocate on many things.

[W_L]

Well, and then there was the whole "Bing using Google search results" thing...not sure if that's still relevant.

 

Bing sucks. And I'm a Microsoft partner/advocate on many things.

 

Was that by choice or like most of us, Microsoft force itself on you?

 

Seriously, name a product and their license owner is...Microsoft, it's hard to get away from Microsoft. I'm not a Linux or open source fanboy, but it does stink that so many software licenses come from them and you need their support.

[Zombie]

Two interesting posts on the Washington Post website:

 

"... as uncomfortable as you may be, there are myriad alternatives to Google, and you are free to unsubscribe from them whenever you wish, so the only person to fault here is yourself if you're complaining"

 

But the following poster suggests that it is not quite as simple as that

 

"I'm neither lazy nor addicted to Google, but I am not 'free to unsubscribe from them' whenever I wish.

I work for an organization that uses Google for our website hosting, email, document sharing, calendars, etc. I have no choice, other than quitting my job (not an option), about continuing to use gmail, Google docs and calendars. I don't like the idea of Google having information about my health because I've had to email human resources and my supervisor to let them know I'll be out because I'm sick or have a doctor's appointment (or for someone in my family). Email because we are located in different buildings and written documentation of absences is preferred. It's also not the business of Google to know when I have out of town meetings, etc. or any other event that needs to be posted onto my calendar for selected others in the organization to access. Note the word selected - my calendar cannot be accessed by the entire organization - only by my supervisor and others in my department.

Perhaps, before making remarks that are more than a bit smug and holier than thou, you might want to use some of that commensense to think about others who are in similar situations through no fault of their own and who cannot just walk away from Google and their upcoming invasion of privacy program (which users cannot opt out of)."

[W_L]

Is Google copying Microsoft or is Microsoft copying Google?

 

That sort of holds true for Microsoft users, too.

[advocatus diaboli]

Is Google copying Microsoft or is Microsoft copying Google?

 

That sort of holds true for Microsoft users, too.

 

Chrome OS isn't a copy of Windows. They're not meant to be competitors, both OSes are used for different things.

 

In regards to, say, Microsoft Word and Google Docs. Hell yes they're competing, but Google isn't copying. They took a (sound) product, and took it to the next evolutionary step, and did it well.