WE SHOULD NOT AFRAID GOOGLE, “Unless it ensures our privacy”
John Battelle discribes Google as a ‘The Database of Intentions’ and continues: “This simply is an aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered and every path taken as a result”. The description of Google, made by Battalle, looks like a meaning of one simple word in encyclopaedia at the first stage. However “Google” is not a simple case as much as it’s description.
When I first started to read about Google and the circumstances that it has created; negative and positive consequences of using it, I didn’t know how much Google means in everyone’s life. Then I realized that whatever I do on computer my fingers find “G.O.O.G.L.E” letters unintentiously. We are talking about most powerful media company in the earth and most rapidly growing company in the Wall Street. In less than a decade, Google has become a corporate colossus. (Number of Employees: 12,238, Revenue in 2006: $10.6 billion, Profit in 2006: $3.1 billio n, Share of the U.S search market: 53.7 percent, Global Unique users in March: 528 million.)
Google relatively provides various advantages and disadvantage as its nature and size. I believe the most important issues we need to discuss are that the function of Google on our privacy and impacts of its monopoly in economic life.
We need to consider that Google provides a service what others find very useful and helps people to find informations at no charge and with one click.
According to Battalle this informations represents in aggregate form a place holder for intentions of humankind a massive database of desires, needs, wants and likes that can be discovered, subpoenad, archieved, tracked, and exploited to all sorts of ends. http://battellemedia.com/archives/000063.php
Moreover Google letting advertisers promote their wares to those poeple in a finally targated way. Google’s book search product, arguably helps rahter than hurts publishers and authors by rescuing books from obscurity and encouraging readres to buy copyrighted works.
There are many further Google tools that contribute more and more convenience to our lives such as GoogleMaps, GoogleNews, GoogleMail, GoogleReader, GoogleScholar etc…Each one was created to supply our intentions. So far so good. Therefore Google is a capitalist tool and a useful one.
“New MICROSOFT“
On the otherhand we need to pay much more attention to it’s unrivalled financial assets and technical wealthiness of Google in its category. This may create giant monopoly. Actually it has became a monopoly already. Google controls more network fiber than any other organization. Thus other search engines will not be successful as much as Google in the far future. If we look from this perspective Google might be our only media. http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070119_001510.html.
“Why does Google remember information about searches?”
Finally we came to privacy issue that Google has created. Why Google needs to keep our searches? However they recently announced a new policy to anonymize their server logs after 18-24 months. They declare that immediate deletion of IP adressed from their logs would make their data systems more vulnerable to security attacks, putting the personal data of Google’s users at greater risk. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-does-google-remember-information.html According to their new policy announcment, they have rights and purposes to keep that information such as helping law enforcements in the investigation and prosecution of ” serious crime”.
In conlusion, if Google adequately protect privacy, everyone around the world can get benefits from its functions. There are both risks and benefits of using Google. I believe big potential of bad use of Google can prevented by a legitimate agreement that place between consumers+state+Google.
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