Google Questions

What things did you learn about Google that surprised and/or disturbed you?

1. Yahoo is just as good as Google.
2. Google provides roughly 75% of the external referrals for most websites.
3. Other online companies struggle for advertising revenue, but Google is profiting a lot because everyone wants to get their hands on the new Google way of advertising. 'Google Watch" was the example used; when it is typed in the search engine, it is expected that advertisements for wrist watches would appear on the right side of the screen. That is how GoogleAds work.
4. Privacy - Google struggles with 2 main issues concerning privacy: 1) Customer/user privacy (the older issue), and 2) government surveillance (the newer issue- governments would love to get a hold of Google's user data information). However, Google is seen to be a "ticking time bomb" in regards to privacy due to the amount of cookies and information that is streamed per user whenever the search engine is used.
5. PageRank problem -- the fact that Google's primary ranking system has less to do with quality and more to do with the popularity of the site.

Are you for or against the direction that Google is going in terms of the collection of user information and creation of user profiles on the Internet?

I personally do not believe that the collection of information and the user profile creations are entirely ethical. I do understand the general use of cookies on your computer when a website that you visit most often is recommending products that you may be interested in (for example: if you visit Nike's website regularly to check new inventories for shoes, the website will suggest other shoes and related products that are likely to meet your needs/wants).

However Google seems to be collecting more than a basic interest, in terms of user data collected from cookies. According to the article (found on the link at the bottom of this posting), Google plants a cookie on your computer, through your IP address, every time a new search is done on your computer when using the google search engine (google.com).

On top of collecting a large amount of information per user, Google is believed to have the accessibility rights to see all of this private information when they please. The company does not comment on why all of this in-depth information is required; privacy questions and inquiries are said to be "completely ignored." 

The last and major unethical thing that Google manages to pull off is the functionality of its toolbar. Apparently the toolbar with update without even asking the user. Mostly all other toolbars will ask for permission to update and install new information, but not Google's toolbar.

All of the privacy issues surrounding Google make it hard to ignore the fact that the endless amount of user information could be used in the worst ways possible. The way that the data is collected and the sneakiness behind the acts would concern anyone who was brought up to speed on Google's practices. I highly disagree with the use and creation of their user profiles because it seems like an unwanted, uninvited, and unknown invasion of privacy. To be honest, it is almost frightening to think that one company holds such powerful information; it is no wonder why Google is seen as "a privacy time bomb."

Please visit the following link to read about Google's privacy issues and how this powerful entity came to hold such detailed information:

http://www.google-watch.org/bigbro.html