Connor’s Conundrums » Will Google Turn Evil?

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Will Google Turn Evil?

Posted by Connor on July 8th, 2006

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“Don’t be evil” is the corporate motto of Google. While this company claims to not seek evil, I’m intrigued by the potential for evil that they have, given all the data they accumulate on our lives. If you choose to use Google’s products, let’s look at what they will know about you:

If you use Gmail, they have all of your personal correspondence. They know what you think about, what you like, who you talk to, what other passwords you have (if you sign up for other sites that are stupid enough to email you your passwords in plain text), and a cornucopia of other items you choose to email about.
If you use Google Talk, they know who your friends are, what you talk about, and how often you’re online chatting.
If you use Froogle, they know what you shop for.
If you use Google Checkout, they have your credit card information and purchase history.
If you use their search engine, they know your search history, and what you’re looking for.
If you use Google Desktop, they know what’s on your computer.
If you upload videos to Google Video, they know what a weird you are for doing a numa numa dance impersonation.
If you use Google Calendar, they know where you are and when, and what sort of activities you conduct on a daily basis.

There are other Google offerings that likewise collect data to send home to the mothership. While I’m not claiming that Google is ever going to use this enormous amount of data for evil-doing, I simply am astounded at how much they know about me.

Oh, and they’re already one step closer to world domination. Google (lowercase) has just become a verb.

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3 comments so far. Care to chime in?

Here’s 14 examples of possible evilness by our new Big Brother since 2001.

#1 Connor on January 2nd, 2007

Well, if they’re so bent on getting information, maybe they should come up with a feature that reads my mind so they will know my frustration with the fact that Gmail doesn’t have smileys. Because sarcasm is hard to communicate without those things, at least for me.

And don’t forget the Mood Ring on the Google toolbar. Now they thing they know what my mood is.

#2 Paradox on May 4th, 2007

It is clearly too early to make a decision about google yet, but being paranoid about your internet privacy (or personal privacy in general) isn’t a bad thing. I mean if google has worked against freedom of information in China (Google censors itself for China )…why wouldn’t they do the same thing here in the US if requested by our government?

There are many potential scenarios that the US government might ask google to share its massive database of ip, sites, emails, search history etc. Simply imagine another major “terrorist” attack on our soil. This one is bigger and affects 5 cities in 5 days. People are going to be really scared and angry and will demand to know who did this and will want revenge….sound familiar? (911). So the powers that be propose to take away a few more of our civil rights in order to guarantee “safety and security”.

But this time the internet will be shown to have been used in an efficient and effective way by these “terrorists” and the government will deliver to congress a bill called “2008 internet security act” or something to that effect. They will then begin to surveil blog posts () shut down sites and arrest dissenting site owners such as this oneand participants. OK OK…this is an paranoid view…but it is possible right? I mean do you understand what is happening with the Patriot act 1 and 2 but even worse the The Military Commissions Act of 2006? WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

Look the bottom line is that the internet is and will continue to be under attack. The main reason is that the “secret combinations” aka “new world order” or simply “Satan”
is scared because he/they do not yet control the internet. It is imperative to them that they do or else their plan will fail or at least be postponed until they CAN control it. Google will play a major role in this fight for the internet but in my mind it is still unclear which side they will be on.