Google The New Big Brother

For some time now, the warm and fuzzy feelings towards Google have dissipated to be replaced by a certain unease. What is Google up to? Googles entire focus in its business strategy is to ensure that their service enables them to fully track you the internet user so that they are able to provide relevant search results. The companies they are buying up on a daily basis are chosen because their products or services add to this business focus.

Googles CEO Eric Schmidt spoke about his companys approach to personalisation at a conference in the UK this week. Googles focus on collecting data on the internet user is far more obsessive than one would imagine. It seems that Google would like to be able to predict, for instance, what a user might want to do the next day or what job he/she might wish to take.

This is a whole new take on providing information on the closest shoe shop! Google wants to be able to predict that you want to buy shoes on a given day and what your style and fashion taste could be, the budget you have towards your shoe purchase, where you live and where you will, most likely, want to shop. All for the sake of providing relevant search results? And if you dont have a budget available because you are broke, is Google going to direct you to a loan facility?

In order to try and re-assure people, Google states that it will only keep this personalised information for two years. Who will police this, one wonders. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly difficult for internet users to stay anonymous. A harmless activity, one would think, of posting a video on YouTube, will provide Google with personal information. Add to this Gmail and iGoogle, never mind the information that Googles new acquisition DoubleClick can provide. Google is searching your e-mails, your video posts and the ones you are viewing and checking on your RSS feeds. What contribution will Googles acquisition 23andMe, a human genetics firm, bring to all of this invasion of personal privacy?

Of course the original warm fuzzy feeling had in part something to do with a statement by Page and Brin, the founders of Google. They maintained that one can make money without doing evil. Then one finds Google providing its search service in China and agreeing to Chinese state censorship. China doesnt exactly have a lilly white reputation regarding its handling of human rights. Add to that Googles growing Big Brother status and one wonders whether the internet user should start getting worried. Read more on this at Independent, UK.

Anja Merret lives in Brighton, UK. Her personal blog http://www.anjamerret.com allows her to voice opinions on issues that interest her and observations she makes.

She has started a new blog http://www.pinkblocks.com that deals with observations on self development and personal power. Her recommendation for self help tools may be found on http://www.anjamerret.blogspot.com

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