Google Is Watching You

I would sell my soul to the devil himself to work for Google. That company does everything, and I love them for it, but recently I’ve been getting a little concerned about them. When the CEO says, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” he starts to sound like Big Brother. I read Nineteen Eighty-Four. I don’t want to spoil it for you, but it doesn’t end well for the little guy. Consider that the Google CEO didn’t placate our concerns, he confirmed them.

Now consider the sheer number of things Google owns and how omnipresent these things are in our lives. Do you use Gmail? It’s great; you never have to delete your emails. Flipside: Google now has years worth of personal conversations archived on you. Do you use Chrome, the Google browser? Check out the privacy agreement you sign to use it. Basically, until Google came under fire and changed it, it said that they owned anything you did or created while using their browser. Do you have a Droid phone? Google created Android. Well, technically another company created it, and then Google bought them because Google can’t stand not owning something.  Google is also developing a laptop operating system. Now they are as bad as Microsoft.

Speaking of Microsoft, you know Google is scary when it can get Microsoft and Apple to partner up to defend themselves.

The take home message is that Google is starting to own more and know more. If we’re not careful about how we treat Google or how we regulate Google, we may wake up to find that we can’t live without them. And that is a dangerous position to be in.

– Alex Rajewski, Guest Blogger