So seeming that Google seems to be the topic of the day, We found this during our Friday afternoon DIGG run. This article lives over @ http://www.mattparnell.com and it definitely echoed what one of our readers Dan was saying today. How much should we trust companies like Google? If all of our data flows through them - and knowledge is power... Should we all be afraid? Just like we are fearing our own government spying on us after reading about new methods to their madness?? Here is Matt's 10 reasons why Google is Evil... Cue the top ten music and get ready...
I am a bit angry at Google, as a few of my sites have been delisted. Among other irks, I am starting to think Google is somewhat evil, if not totally. Maybe the robots they have running things are evil, or maybe it is the people running the show. Either way, here is why I think Google is evil:
- Google isn't nice to webmasters, as many times the relevant result is way below the fold, and sometimes is on the next page. This is bad when crap pages are there and are keeping people from getting what they need.
- Google's advertisements are a scheme to take over the world...the online one, anyway. Google's ads are hardly ever relevant to the information on the page for many subjects, and they are not very pretty. Webmasters should be able to choose the fonts for the ads, not just the colors.
- Google is taking over the corporate world with their network appliances, that index everything shared on a network. What if Google is building invisible back doors in these? If they are, the Government probably has its tendrils in all large corporations' networks.
- Google is very picky, in the sense that it is selective in the pages it actually does index. When a website has over 50,000 pages and Google only indexes 12,000, it can keep good content from ever being read by anyone.
- Google likes money, yet they support open source. I really hope that Google doesn't end up finding a way to somehow "own" any open source software, which they could then make closed. Then, Google would have even more to profit off of.
- Google cooperates with various governments to censor search results and prevent circumvention of filters. Even though they don't talk about it, many sites in the US have likely been blacklisted by the government.
- Google does email. Gmail is great, everyone and their grandma has it. The problem is that with the indexing of all of our emails, Google has lots of power, which means your respective government has lots of power, as Google will cooperate with it. Think about China.
- Google has lots of applications, and is acquiring more all the time. This is bad in the sense that a lot of these applications phone home. The Google toolbar, for example, sends "anonymous" information back to Google for unknown purposes.
- Google records all of the information they can get. Your search queries, IP address, and surfing habits are all recorded. I hope that this info isn't anything incriminating for you. Personally, I use Customize Google with Firefox to stay a bit more anonymous.
- The Google cookie on many of Google's applications expires in 2038. Why do they need a persistent cookie with a unique ID number for each user? Who knows. What we do know is that Matt Cutts, an engineer at Google, once worked for the NSA. Does that make you comfortable?You can find more information about Google and its closet full of skeletons here. Note that I do use Google, but I try to be more careful. I wish you all safe browsing!
So boys and girls what did we learn from this? No not just copy content and lose your Google rankings ( JERK! ) Free is good but you always get what you pay for! Free video sharing services copyright your content. Maybe Google has some sort of notion if you allow your data to touch their networks it will be indexed and then what? Protect your important confidential data as you would protect your $$$! And NO that doesn't mean keep it in the freezer (or the oven!)!
And just as a bonus here is a way to use google to bypass webfilters
