How much do we trust Google with our private information?
I read an interesting post on GigaOm about Google search versus open source (or crowd sourced) search in the form of Jimmy Wales’ Search Wikia and I started to think some more about Google’s growing dominance over so many aspects of our online lives. The post basically talks about how Search Wikia could be to Google what Linux has become (and is becoming) to Microsoft. The question being asked is whether an open source competitor to Google can make serious inroads into Google’s market and it may come down to a slow process of attrition over time. Of course Search Wikia isn’t the only initiative of this sort. Jason Calacanis has launched a human powered search engine called Mahalo which is billed as the “world’s first human-powered search engine”. Both Search Wikia and Mahalo represent a shift away from the automated processes used by Google and similar search engines and perhaps also a trend towards a more personal approach to search on the Web.
What I am getting to, after a fashion, is that these human powered alternatives to Google seem to underscore this sense that Google is becoming an overwhelmingly dominant force in our lives, so much so that just about everything many people do on the Web is touched by some aspect of Google. Our email is run by Gmail (which is monitored enough to enable Google to present contextual ads), our schedules by Google Calendar, our basic documents and spreadsheets using Google Docs, our search preferences (and a complex matrix of our tastes and consumption habits) by Google search and more. A large percentage of traffic on the Web is facilitated or observed by Google. One question is how concerned you ought to be that so much of your life is being observed by such a powerful and virtually omniscient organisation on the Web. Well, for starters, you should take a look at Google’s privacy policy (the full version is here) and decide for yourself whether you are happy with how Google treats your personal information. The following paragraph in the full policy is an interesting example of things you should be aware of:
Information you provide – When you sign up for a Google Account or other Google service or promotion that requires registration, we ask you for personal information (such as your name, email address and an account password). For certain services, such as our advertising programs, we also request credit card or other payment account information which we maintain in encrypted form on secure servers. We may combine the information you submit under your account with information from other Google services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of combining such information.
The one challenge with Google is that because of its pervasive presence, it is possible for Google to compile a pretty comprehensive profile of its users based on their use of its various services. This isn’t really a new thing and privacy advocates have been warning about this sort of thing for ages. How much information about yourself do you want to give away? Do we ultimately want completely invasive and personalised services where our personal preferences and tastes are virtually public knowledge in the interests of providing a better service or more appropriate product? Maybe we do. What we should all be doing is paying more attention to who can use what and where. Google is in the process of standardising its Universal Search service that combines all its search engines into one big one. This is made possible through its various facets and it also makes the sort of profiling I mentioned above possible.
On the other hand, distributed services (perhaps Search Wikia or Mahalo for search, Flickr for photos, your own mail server for mail and Amazon for your shopping needs) are arguably less likely to share all your information and facilitate accurate and personal profiling so if you are concerned about Big Brother Google, then you need to think carefully about what you use for what and when on the Web. Privacy is about taking responsibility for knowing how much privacy we retain and what we give away.
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google, privacy, universal search, mahalo, search wikia, open source
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