The End of Google’s ‘Do No Evil’ Mantra
In a few days Google will change all it’s 64 privacy policies into a single big one. I am no expert in the legal affairs of these giant corporation, but these are my comments for what they are worth.
We as Google users, whether we are using Search, Gmail, or any of Google plethora of services, we actually have very little choice. If we want to carry on benefiting from Google, they we have to agree. If we do not agree, we will not get the full benefit of Google. It’s pretty black and white.
So what do you do if you don’t agree with this. And what’s it all about anyway.
Google’s made no secret they have stated that the purpose of a single privacy policy is to make things easier for us, we can use all Google’s services without having to agree to any extra demands on our Data (we’ve already agreed to give that away). Secondly, Google have stated that they plan to share our data across their services. If we’re searching for a digital camera to buy, then we might want to see photos of it, or perhaps get emailed about digital cameras. Certainly we would be announcing the fact we’re interested in a digital camera to our connections on Google.
So Google’s plan is use our data to benefit ourselves and our friends, this of course appeals to advertisers because Google will share some of our data with them too… (That digital camera). But it does raise massive questions about intrusive Google plans to be.
What can you do – very little in my opinion… sign up and don’t worry about it. If you want to carry on using Gmail, Google Apps, Blogger, Picasa you’ll have to agree to it anyway. So live with it.
But the caveat is this… support those that are fighting your corner. There is a growing industry of user-awareness groups that are examining every angle of these privacy policies, the same goes for all the Mega Corporations, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon and so on. These user-awareness groups set out to protect our rights and ensure that the Googles of the world don’t actually take over our lives.
Spare some time for these people, because they need our support, the WikiLeaks, Anonymous, and other so called ‘cyber-terrorists’ might actually be on our side.
I do now believe that Google’s Mantra to ‘Do No Evil’ is now officially dead, Eric Schmidt’s reorganisation of the Google top management in the middle of 2011 is not truly coming to light, Google has hugely high aspirations and it would appear there is little we can do to stop them.