firstly, Google was set-up as a search engine, if you use it for anything else ur a fool. Secondly, Google's aim is to get information, no matter where it comes from, you are a fool if you create docs or share confidential info on Google.
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Is Google evil?
- Thread starter rpm
- Start date
Totaly baseless point.
i became very wary when a few months after i got my gmail account, i noticed a 'last visited on...' link in my Google search results.
i thought: how the hell do they know this stuff. turns out they collect search histories for every gmail user (or google 'account' as they call it more generally). Although you can switch the search tracking off, it is on by default, and they don't tell you about it.
to this extent, if you click on a search result in google, you first get redirected to Google servers (although they mask it) before being redirected to the destination site.
Now there might nothing be wrong with that, but it is naieve to think that google is going to stay the way it is and that it will never abuse all this information. Or that it will never give in to strong arm government tactics.
and once your information is out there, you won't be able to delete it.
so rather be safe than sorry...
i thought: how the hell do they know this stuff. turns out they collect search histories for every gmail user (or google 'account' as they call it more generally). Although you can switch the search tracking off, it is on by default, and they don't tell you about it.
to this extent, if you click on a search result in google, you first get redirected to Google servers (although they mask it) before being redirected to the destination site.
Now there might nothing be wrong with that, but it is naieve to think that google is going to stay the way it is and that it will never abuse all this information. Or that it will never give in to strong arm government tactics.
and once your information is out there, you won't be able to delete it.
so rather be safe than sorry...
kilps
Expert Member
I'll admit it - I use gmail, google docs, google calendar (they have just got the sms function for south africa working ...), google reader and google search - they are all flippin useful services
What I forsee however is these services being stored on a users personal server at home - so they are still accessable from anywhere with the same functionality - but data is stored locally
mmm - anyone wanna start an open source project?
What I forsee however is these services being stored on a users personal server at home - so they are still accessable from anywhere with the same functionality - but data is stored locally
mmm - anyone wanna start an open source project?
Any user that has signed up with google has almost certainly read the small print as google definitely points you at it.
By definition a google user should be an informed user.
DavidJ
Well-Known Member
That is one of the main reasons I've now configured Firefox to clear my cookies every time I close it.
I don't understand why everyone continually singles out Google though since all the other companies (Yahoo, Microsoft) most certainly do this kind of thing too. Smear campaign, as someone suggested?
that's not a very informed statement. Google has 80 percent of the search market in the US, and is pretty much dominant in all other countries too.
I seriously doubt all these people can be 'informed', given the amount of idiots populating this earth.
As to the smear campaign allegation: first of all, sure, msn and yahoo do the same thing, that's why people don't trust them. Google claims to be 'not evil' yet they sneak data collection in every one of their tools.
Secondly, yahoo and MSN don't nearly have the same size, scope or ambition as Google.
No matter what you think of Google, it is just dumb not to be critical of any company with this type of power.
jarr
Expert Member
how does that old adage go... just because i'm paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you 
for firefox users, there's a nice extension called customizegoogle which has the nice privacy feature as well of anonymizing (is there even such a word?) your google userid.
for firefox users, there's a nice extension called customizegoogle which has the nice privacy feature as well of anonymizing (is there even such a word?) your google userid.
Yes google own the majority of the search market but of that, how many are registered users? How many of those registered users have read the small print (most I would think.) Any peep using google that hasn't signed up for services is not signing up with big brother 'by default.' Google state they do not keep information on users unless those users have signed up for accounts and even then the user is invisible as all google have is a username, email address, and password.
The premise of the article is 'should google be trusted with your confidential documents?" Google subscribes to the privacy laws of the usa (as applies to the individual) google also subscribes to all other american law including 'safe harbour' and the patriot act. Google will surrender information in a court of law or by subpoena of the us gub but are less likely to surrender that information to a foreign government (the recent Orkut and chinese bloggers being cases in point.) In all cases google has refused such information (unless those companies, governments would like to deal with US law.)
Insofar as confidential documents are concerned these are under the jurisdiction of all of the above - if you are planning on blowing up the world and uncle sam wants to know google are unlikely to protect you; however if you want to store confidential business docs on their servers then you are reliant on google's server security and uptime which is surely more reliant than your own. The choice is yours but one thing for sure: google are not Yahoo or MSN (or aol) which have open pipes to the chinese government (and similar) and surrender personal information at the merest whisper from Uncle Sam.
Google have a stated policy of the right to privacy and the right of the individual - until such time as I am shown evidence to the contrary I will continue to subscribe to google. At all times the choice is yours.
For scare mongers.
DavidJ
Well-Known Member
Eh? Microsoft is far far bigger than Google in just about every imaginable respect, at least an order of magnitude larger by any metric, and has their software installed on almost every desktop in the world. Now THAT'S power that can really be abused ... Google doesn't hold a candle, by your arguments we should be fretting over Microsoft, not Google. Users are also not locked into Google's products anywhere nearly as badly as they are locked into Microsoft's, so if Google does anything stupid, or if better competing products come along, customers can (and will) easily switch away in droves, just as easily as they switched to Google in the first place. Nobody is locked into a particular search engine AT ALL, nor into a particular online advertising provider, nor is there much in the way of network effects with Google's products. The high margins they reap in the online advertising business (thanks to their auction-style algorithms) also demonstrate that there is scope for a more efficient competitor to come in (read "cheaper advertising") ... and it's their only significant income stream, so Google is much more fragile than it appears to be - they really have a strong incentive not to do anything "evil". They also have an extremely clean track record as far as "evil" stuff is concerned, while other companies have known dirty track records. This obsessive focusing on Google is simply illogical, it's not based on reason or facts, just a mere hint at some "potential" to do evil, which when you examine the facts, they don't really even have that potential. What we have is basically an online advertising business that is reaping high margins in a market with no strategic lock-in (i.e. it's only a matter of time before serious competitors arrive) and that just happens to use the income to subsidize other kinds of useful information utilities. Now you might argue that should they start slipping in the market they'll become desperate and cash in on a strategic asset - information on users - but at the end of the day that information isn't even all as valuable as most people assume, except in aggregate, but even so.
I don't want my Google searches stored and linked to my Google account, but not because I think Google is going to do something "evil" with that info (the information would mostly more be personally embarrassing than valuable), I think there's a comparatively bigger (but still small) risk of accidental leakage e.g. disgruntled/crazy/stupid employee, or a hacker who discovers an unknown vulnerability in their Linux systems or something.
PS: Where did you get your information that Google is bigger than Yahoo and Microsoft? Or was it just media-based perception? Google is the smallest of the lot, and is a baby compared to Microsoft:
Yahoo: $5.257 Billion revenue, $1.896 Billion profits, 11000 employees
Google: $6.138 Billion revenue, $1.465 Billion profits, 9300 employees
Microsoft: $44.28 billion revenue, $16.47 billion profits, 71500 employees
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Notice how i said MSN, not Microsoft. You can't compare Microsoft with Google b/c MS is involved in a lot more things than just search.
As for Yahoo, the numbers you've quoted are for 2005, in Q3 2006, Google's profit was 5 times bigger than yahoo's and its market cap was 144 billion vs 37 billion for Yahoo.
GavinMannion
Executive Member
Just a thought, Google has no reason to ever invade the privacy of their users. They are making enough money now and won't want to ruin that.
BUT What happens the next time someone attacks the US, the CIA finds "proof" that the terrorists used Google Docs and then get a court order for all Google docs. Yeah they will try fight it but when the government decides to change the law to 'protect' the country they can lose.
Now do you want your information given to the good ol US of A?
Personally I have no issue with it because I don't store confidential info online at all.
BUT What happens the next time someone attacks the US, the CIA finds "proof" that the terrorists used Google Docs and then get a court order for all Google docs. Yeah they will try fight it but when the government decides to change the law to 'protect' the country they can lose.
Now do you want your information given to the good ol US of A?
Personally I have no issue with it because I don't store confidential info online at all.
lilDeath
Executive Member
Well, with bad business decisions come added business performance pressure, Google's ballsup in China is a good example. Google is nowhere close to being just a simple search engine anymore....
IMO anything is possible, no real entity (read corporate) can be trusted these days... there will always be means or ways they, or vrot apples, can exploit it. They have the means.
It all depends on your paranoia levels
Rather be safe than sorry.
IMO anything is possible, no real entity (read corporate) can be trusted these days... there will always be means or ways they, or vrot apples, can exploit it. They have the means.
It all depends on your paranoia levels
Rather be safe than sorry.