The Dark Side of Google?
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : June 10, 2007
Recently I posted on the amazing new feature of Google Maps: Google Street View. Google techs drove through a handful of major cities, collecting images for their mapping database. Unfortunately, the cameras have picked up images that might be considered embarrassing (check out this pic of a guy checking out some lady in the mission district of San Francisco) or incriminating (some dude outside of a strip club). In a recent Slate article, Google Streets was jokingly referred to as Google Spy.
The more ubiquitous these technologies become, and the more they are connected with one company (like Google), the more unsettling they become. I’m not a conspiracy theorist (someday I’ll post about why I LOATHE conspiracy theories). I use Google all the time with joy. But if they wanted to use all the info they have on each of us for nefarious ends, then we’d all be screwed. Seriously. Think of how many times you’ve had usernames and passwords of various websites sent to you via your gmail account.
Mr. Google has his hands in everything…and if he were to turn evil, he could not only read my emails, he could read my Google docs and Google spreadsheets. He could analyze what blogs and newsfeeds I read the most. He could figure out my search histories if he wanted to. And, soon, he will even have pictures of my house.
Why hasn’t there been a movie about some super tech company trying to take over?
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But isn’t their internal corporate slogan, “Do no evil”?
They expect others to “do no evil”. They can do what ever they want, like turning in dissident bloggers to the communist government of China so they (Google) don’t get banned from the Chinese internet system.
Antitrust - its primarily about “Micro$oft” but it could be applied by any tech company.