Should you Fear Google?

Ponty writes "Google-watch.com is presenting a list of nine complaints about (almost) everybody's favorite search engine. Some of the salient fears are "Google has no data retention policies. There is evidence that they are able to easily access all the user information they collect and save." and "Matt Cutts, a key Google engineer, used to work for the National Security Agency." The concerns seem like paranoid hand waving to me, but maybe I'm not paranoid enough."

Comments

bogus complaints

[Willy K.]

These "complaints" are totally bogus paranoia in my opinion.

Let's take them one-by-one:

1. Google's immortal cookie : they were the first to do this. Doesn't that make them a trend-setter? I don't even see why this is bad. All sites are doing it now, because they realized it makes sense. Users hate to be burdened with preferences and new cookies all the time. As the Ronco TV-oven ad says : "Set it, and forget it".

2. Google records everything they can : So do all companies. Data is their business. They would be crippling themselves *not* to save all the data. It's how they improve their searches, with, for example, geolocation-based delivery. Isn't it great that most of your search results are in your home language?! That's what they can do by gathering info.

3. Google retains all data indefinitely : Good for them! Most companies can't afford to do this, but clearly Google has thin enough data and big enough RAID arrays that they can. I'm sure they'll put in place a "data retention" policy if they ever need to, but it sounds like they are scaling just fine with the price of storage dropping, and the rate they are growing. I mean, seriously, this argument hardly presents a good reason to throw data away. Because "uh, it's bad for big brother and good for us to have data thrown away"? Gimme a break.

4. Google won't say why they need this data : Pleading the 5th doesn't make a man guilty, as much as paranoids would like you to think. You know they use it at least for two things: IP-based geolocation information, and tracking their own usage levels, so they can better scale their server farms, and purchase only the appropriate bandwidth, so they don't waste money. That's called "being a prudent business".

5. Google hires spooks : Of course they want people with security clearance! All companies that are trying to be a player in the government sector need employees with security clearance, because the government is a tough customer. You can't blame Google for wanting government contracts. They represent long-term big-money. That's what every company (especially these days) is striving for. If they hire former "spooks" (the word-choice even betrays these guys as ultra-paranoid), that's a quick way to get on the government's good-side.

6. Google's toolbar is spyware : don't you think they know that if they ever do anything bad, hax0rs will be all up in their face revealing their scandal? Google prides itself on a clean user-experience. If they don't prompt you for updates, it's because they don't want to bother you. I agree, it might be nice to have a checkbox option somewhere for those curious-types to enable a "notification-of-new-version" feature, however.

7. Google's cache copy is illegal : if search-engines were "opt-in" for webmasters, we wouldn't have any search-engines. I mean, seriously, are these people's suggestions for real, or is this a hoax?! Also, I expect (although don't know for sure) that Google is quite good about responding to requests for purging cached content. I'll bet when those webmasters call up Google and say "please clear all records of this page", Google probably responds. If not, they should.

8. Google is not your friend : Look, I'm not "young, stupid script kiddie", that's for sure. But I don't understand why Google has to be "accountable". Or penalized for having become the internet's ubiquitous search-engine. They provide the best results over-all. If people try to abuse the "semi-secret" algorithm, then they *should* get knocked back down in the rankings. This isn't a battle between search-engines and webmasters for Google. It's about providing the best results, so they can continue to drum up business. When are you people going to realize that success doesn't *always* corrupt?

9. Google is a privacy time-bomb : I don't even understand this one. Sounds like an ad for Google to me, rather than a rebuke.

-Will

Re:I'll worry when it finds my webpage.

[madfgurtbn]

I've submitted my webpage 10x to google, yahoo, ... and it's not a common name or like anything else. Yet I do a search, no link on the first 5 pages (I give up after that).

You don't understand Google. It doesn't really care if you submit your site or not. It ranks pages according to who links to you and some other arcane criteria.

If you are one in a millions hits, it is probably because there are a million pages just like yours. I have never submitted anything to any search engines, but the sites I have done are listed high in Google, because they are either related to obscure subjects, or are considered authoritative because they have been linked to many times.