Somebody should create a blog or calendar of events or *something* so we can track and see the events where Google turns the corner and becomes EVIL.
Right now they’re offering a billion free, incredibly useful applications (Analytics, AdSense, Web Master Tools, Search, Docs, Reader, and on and on and on), they’re facilitating nearly everyone’s searching, they’re making sense of the nebulous Web for us.
They’re also gathering piles of cash through AdWords, trading above $700 a share and gathering *tons* of information about us. All of us.
I’d be willing to be that Google would know who I am, even though I’m blogging anonymously. As a matter of fact, I’m certain they know who I am, or can easily deduce it from the data trail.
Fascinating stuff. And, as of yet, not horribly threatening to me. I don’t really mind the data gathering that’s the hallmark of the modern world. Widespread debit and credit card use, phone GPS, club cards for supermarkets and video rental places. It’s endless.
You could say that Experian, TransUnion and its counterparts would know the most about us. In your annual credit check it’s eye opening to see the data they have on you. But it’s insurance companies—and the whole American insurance system—that really freaks me out. I don’t like it. Maybe it’s my Catholic upbringing that predisposes me to feel guilty/penalized for things I’ve done, but let’s say: you buy a pack of cigarettes with your groceries, you swipe your club card, you pay with your credit card. What you’ve purchased is stored and associated with you; later, when trying to use your insurance you get flagged and dropped by the insurance company because they have mined your data and see that you purchased a pack of smokes and are too great a risk for them to cover.
Grrrrr. I could explain this more eloquently, but you get the idea. We’re fncked. No health coverage, some sort of black mark on your record—and this is *your* record, YOU as a person, not just you as a consumer. This is you, because what else do you have but your health?
Anyway, I’m getting off track. Back to Google.
Like insurance companies, Google has a lot of data on you. And while their motto is “Don’t Be Evil”, their enormous resources (read: power) will at some point corrupt them. I believe that to be essentially inevitable. What will their first step towards the dark side be? Has it already happened? I don’t know. Someone smarter and more in-the-know than me would have to figure it out.
But whoever that is, they should blog about it. Log it. Track it. Mark the date and events that things went south.
