Read WebProNews
With Friends!

Is Google Really As Evil As This Video Suggests?

Consumer Watchdog Turns Schmidt Into Evil Ice Cream Man

Get the WebProNews Newsletter!
Top Rated White Papers and Resources
There are 73 Comments. Add Yours.
  1. If you don’t like what they do then don’t use their services. Its their search engine, their website, they have every right do do what they want with information collected from you when you are using their services. Its in their TOS. If you don’t like it quit using Google.

    What website doesn’t do some sort of tracking to help increase revenue? And why is that considered bad? So they track what your interested in and feed more relevant advertisements… ohhh noo they are the Devil!!!!

    seriously people get over it. At least its a service that you can stop using at any time.

    • Guest

      So Adam perhaps your suggesting that once users awaken to just how info can be used or privately sold then they should just move to someones elses search engine and services instead of Googles? So in turn Google looses market share and valued customers. Just get over it you say…. perhaps you feel this way but privacy still is a valued right in a society that has less and less. Get over it… well that’s something the CIA might say with justification and reason not Google.

      • Yamarules

        Oh the awakening… Don you see that since google has overgrown in the years, rivals are coming up with these petty issues and media is glorifying it! You wouldnt even know the meaning of what privacy means if you were not informed by the so called “media”.
        Prevention is better than cure, dont want? opt out…

        • Roy

          Hey, 3rd grade dropout, you can’t opt out. Google has their tentacles all over the web. There is this thing called Google Analytics that most websites use!!!!! Even if you quit using Google, you are being tracked!!!!!! Google needs to be stopped. Can somebody require 5th grade diplomas before posting please? Maybe we can develop some time of a captcha-question like “What’s gray, in your head and most people don’t use?” sort of a deal.

    • Roy

      Adam, this discussion is for people who finished high school or that use their brains. Your come back is no different than that from a blonde wife. There are these things called “laws” for a reason. The world doesn’t work the way you view it. Your “it’s their search engine; it’s their website” reply can’t be more stupid and amateurish because it can’t. You wouldn’t recognize a T-bone unless I shove your head far up a butcher’s ass. There are anti-trust laws for a reason. Your papi, Google has a monopoly on search which uses to abuse their power. Please stop commenting. Thank you!

  2. I think most big corporations are evil in their own way, but that’s what happens when you get too big, there’s money to made and the more you pry the more you can control the consumer market.

  3. Rich

    It’s a question of opting in or opting out. Similiar to new banking laws passed. Freedom of choice for the consumer, If someone want’s to keep a database let them do so with information willingly provided. There’s plenty of dirty tricks programmers can migrate to other than watching every’s consumer’s every move,

  4. Donovan

    Facebook is Evil

    Google “Dont Be Evil”

    Google is trying not to be evil

  5. Len

    … they start “cooperate” with the GOVERNMENT. Government-run companies (through regulation OR direct management, like GM) is the definition of Fascism.
    Congratulations boys and girls of this country formerly knows as USA – the capitalism is DEAD and Fascism is on the rise.

    • marc

      This is dangerous what you are doing. Your definition of fascism is based on nothing. If fascism is defined by state intervention, I cannot see the evil in fascism. So, would that mean that we should let fascism return?

  6. I commented on another privacy issue article just recently and this is pretty much the same. Everybody wants the good things that technology offers but we must all be aware of the other side of the coin — and there always is one. You take the good with the bad or take nothing at all.

  7. Guest

    Google IS evil!

  8. Joe P

    Lots of people have mentioned big corporations are evil, this is constantly being written on the Internet. Nobody mentions viable solution how to stop the large corporations becoming evil.

    Simple solution
    ——————-

    Solution to change the company, corporations, trusts law so that only “individuals” can hold stock of companies, corporations and trusts. Easy to implement with today’s database technology. This will eliminate the current system in which the oligarchs hide behind complex corporate, trust stock holding.

    Large corporations will never be evil….. think…..

  9. Kain

    Who do you trust more Google or Facebook is like asking whether you would prefer cancer or
    AIDs

    Both are G & Facebook have a terrible track record with privacy and should not be trusted with your private data.

    I don’t use Facebook for privacy reasons and block all Google cookies on my main browser, keeping a second browser for anything that requires a Google account.

  10. Matt

    The Google help fora can sometimes be like a Kool Aid glugging cult. Anyone critical of Google has some (not all) volunteers making all kinds of threats against the hapless soul who thought that, perhaps, Google might be interested in their point of view. Or in helping them solve their problem. Which was probably caused by Google in any case.

    Google will have to sort out its problems before governments and lawmakers around the world decide to do it for them.

  11. “Do Not Track Me” list would be a great idea. Personally I don’t trust them both – Facebook and Google – both companies made their business model based on the information they can collect about their users. We have to remember what Google have done not so long ago – they have acquired DoblueClick – company accused of spying Internet users in order to show them the best targeted ads. Now check what is main Google income source. Guess what? It’s contextual ads. Think it for yourselves.

  12. A company called Phorm performed deep packet inspection on a few hundred thousand British Telecom customers as a test for their targeted add system.

    While this is obviously wire-tapping in its purest sense, the Westminster Police force decided not to prosecute as BT would not have known this was a crime…

    The EU Information commissioner found the UK at fault over this and requested a response from the British government, they are still waiting for a reply.

    My point to all this, is if a country like the UK can stomach downright illegal underhand actions, then why will they or the people give 30 seconds to think about an opt-in system like Google or Face-book?

    The average person neither understands nor cares about such things, perceiving those that do as techy nerds who need to get out more.

    Sad but true, people will only care when it affects them directly, and then its too late.

    I’ve included a link to the story about Phorm here as its going to be very prominent soon as the UK gets slapped about by the EU in public, probably brining the Google story to the top of the agenda in the states. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/29/eu_phorm/

  13. Guest

    Google has done more good for American business than most companies in the past 10 years. They are one of the bright spots in business today.

    Consumer Watchdog is a group of political hacks just looking for big targets to make a name for themselves.

    • Roy

      And you are a brainless moron who wouldn’t recognize a t-bone unless somebody at CW shoves your head far up a butcher’s ass. But then again, you’ll say, FOUND IT, FOUND IT!!! That’s why organizations like CW are there. To protect the stupid from the wolves. You are the stupid, Google is the wolf.

      • Guest

        To Roy – the fact that you have had to resort to demeaning comments and personal insults indicates to me that you are really the one lacking integrity or intelligence. If you feel like having an adult discussion then try to stick to the facts instead of antagonizing others like a child. Also consider how many small companies depend on Google for Ad revenue, as well as promoting their own businesses. Many companies like CW can potentially exagerate the facts for their own personal gain. Fear-based propaganda is nothing new in the U.S.

  14. After China, several countries are waking up to ‘threats’ from Google. Only the US will be left unable to do anything against Google. Long live Google’s freedom (at any cost) even if you are bared from your bedroom by the likes of Eric Schmidt.

  15. I believe whereever there is smoke, there must be a fire.

    Maybe they are not evil at google, but something is most definetely wrong, since so many people are reacting to it this way.

    • Lemmings will follow the pack across waters too wide for some of them to cross so some or even many drown but that doesn’t stop them from following none the less.

      How well do you swim? ;-)

  16. Guest

    I’d be interested to know exactly what personal information the anti-Google individuals believe is being tracked against their will?

    If Google simply tracks anonymous data such as IP Address for the purpose of understanding behavioral patterns online then I don’t think it’s a big deal. I doubt that by knowing the online activity of visitor “54.65.123.44″ would ever be traced back to me.

    If, on the other hand, Google automatically tracks “Joseph Peters” at “123 Street Name” in “City” without my knowledge then yes, I would have an issue with that.

    Another thing to bear in mind is how many small online publishers are out there who DEPEND on ad revenue to sustain themselves. Ad revenue is what keeps much of the web free, and not everyone runs something as large as Murdoch’s empire who can afford to charge for their content.

  17. John DK

    Both google and facebook are sustained through unlimited circular money supply through corrupt fiat currency banking cartel.

    Solution is to nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank and too big to fail banks, evil corporations like google and facebook will fold up automatically.

  18. They have been an evil aspect.
    I am a proud Anti – Googler
    If they had established High speed internet service , they will control many things

  19. Guest

    Are people seriously asking Congress to legislate a “Do Not Track Me” List? I’m still waiting for the Robo-callers to start paying attention to the “Do Not Call” list that I signed up for FIVE YEARS AGO (and renewed almost yearly since).

    Unless, of course, you think that asking Congress to waste more money on election-year boondoggles is a good idea. Hello? Anybody out there remember Health Care Reform? Remember anything more than 15 minutes ago?

    I think the American people need Google to track them because WE CAN’T DO IT OURSELVES!

  20. Where is the boundary between the rights of a user of the Internet and a someone providing goods or services via the Internet’s right to information collected from and during the access of their services?

    An argument could be made if Google were putting the information they collect to a malicious use but no one even seems to care about whether they do or not and instead its more like a general paranoia. If someone wants to be paranoid they only have to look to their ISP to see someone who sees EVERY bit and byte that goes into or comes out of one’s computer.

    That’s not to say that ISPs look at any of it but does that matter to the paranoid?

    Also, it is not like someone accessing Google’s services is having their information taken without their permission or knowledge because if the user doesn’t give it, they can’t take it.

    It seems the Internet age is being translated into the ‘someone must protect me from myself’ age.

    • chris

      Why get worked up about google and face book when all you cell phone contacts are in the servers o f Verizon and AT&T and others. Obviously this information is available to all law enforcement agencies and if the communication companies decide any other altruistic use of data. We are way beyond big brother

  21. Google is still the top search engine. I use them for my business advertising and have no problems.
    I am a service company.There is nothing for them to really track or steal.
    When a purchase is made,it is not online.
    Google can track me as much as they wish.
    It seems the more they know of me the better it is for my website.
    If you need a locksmith in Fort Lauderdale,call us.
    Main website is: http://www.chuckthelocksmith.com
    (954) 709-2237

  22. Google is far mor evil than any of you imagine. They control the flow of information on the Internet, perhaps the most indidious evil ever known to human civilization. They do this by “keyword” stuffing, meaning the website that stuffs the most profit-pulling keywords for google’s bottom line get the highest ranking. This is tantamount to mind control – the worse form of cencorship the world has ever seen. Wake up idiots. 1984 is well upon us. Oh, and backlinks are worthless without keyword stuffing. Take back freedom of speech, take back freedom of the Internet – boycott google.

  23. People often do not think things through. In order to maintain a do-not-track me list, they have to track the people on the list. Just another parameter in their algorithm.

    And even if Google does it all through cookies, never saving cookies on their own server (which is part of the definition of a cookie), it would have the appearance as if the person is still being tracked, even though all the “tracking” is on the user’s own computer; essentially, it would be like giving you a tool to track yourself. But for some people, there will be no convincing.

    On the other hand, Google needs to remember their own motto: “Don’t be evil”… unless they forgot it.

  24. Sue G.

    NEVER BUY A GOOGLE PRODUCT like those fake ADWORDS or bad DROID phone- but use their free services. Its true that nobody trusts Google anymore. The damage is done as Google allows cyber stalking, invasion of privacy, false slanderous search results and harassment from Google employees. Google is sued by thousands now for fake ADWORDS accounts and PRIVACY INVASION, FAKE SLANDER and Google will be a thing of the past soon. Popular sites like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, etc. have RELEVANT search results. – Search “GOOGLE BEING SUED” and view tons of results with people winning. The DO NOT TRACK LIST request is a must.

  25. Neo

    Google got more then a little head start from an Australian company they got virtually the complete business plan. The moles in the company were Sean Francis Byrne and a person calling himself Stilgarean. Read http://​www.googlebeginnings.com/. I’d like to be paid for the work I did.

What do you think? Respond.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>