Google As Big Brother

In the article Google As Big Brother it starts off basically talking about the different search engines. There are four search engines that the article writes about that are primarily the most important: Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Ask Jeeves. Yahoo! has bought several search engines such as Overture, Alltheweb, AltaVista, and Inktomi. By 2004, Google was taken in by Yahoo!, and now Yahoo! proven to yield the same results as Google. Soon after Yahoo!’s compilation of engines, Microsoft began to experiment with crawlers, and in 2005 came out with their own engine. Microsoft is keeping away from ads and focusing their energy on a clean interface and deep crawls.
Google as of now is the top website referral search engine at about 75 percent. Google uses sponsored links triggered by keywords the user types in. This is how Google makes their profit to maintain the site. The engineers of Google start to question the purpose spending time crawling non profit sites such as .org .edu and .gov, because they fail to bring in revenue.
The article also mentions the privacy controversy with Google. Since Google stores all user data ever input, there is an argument on how Google will deal with all of this information. Google created the first ever cookie that is in effect until 2038. This cookie an ID number on your computer and records all your activity. And because Google is so intertwined with the web itself, the decision about a privacy policy could affect the whole web.
Another controversy is Google’s PageRank system. It is stated that it is “anti-democratic” because of how is ranks pages. Google uses an algorithm that does not rank based upon the quality of the page but on it “power popularity.”
I personally have mixed feelings on this topic. Regarding privacy, I think Google must except that it is going to have personal input from users and should take the responsibility of not using that information against its users. It is unfair to put trust into a website such as Google and then have them cheat and take advantage of you. I also feel as though it is not always Google’s responsibility to keep its contents out of view of others. Google should not take responsibility of lost/stolen or anti-democratic information due the the users ignorance and trust in the site. Google does not have you accept a liscense of agreement stating that it will protect its users. It is related to the incident where a women tried to sue McDonalds because by eating their food, it made her fat. A person can choose whether or not he or she eats at McDonalds, just as they can choose not to go to Google. Therefore, my opinion goes either way on this topic.