By Their Acts

Is Google evil?

Google remembers everything about you. What you looked for, which of the sites it suggested you settled for. All to improve its search algorithms in future of course.

When the Chinese government had a quiet word, Google was happy to censor it’s search engines in order to gain access to a lucrative market.

If you use Gmail, Google stores your email forever. And then, Google will search and index your emails.

So, is Google evil?

Consider what happened when the Chrome browser was released.

The license agreement for the browser originally contained a clause specifying that ‘by submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services.’

Embarrassed by the outcry that followed, Google quickly apologised, explained that the condition was a cut-n-paste from contracts used with other products, and removed the offending clause.

Chrome has since been branded spyware by many who looked under the hood.

No, I don’t think Google is evil. Not yet anyway. But it is careless.

By Gerard Cunningham

Gerard Cunningham occupies his time working as a journalist, writer, sub-editor, blogger and podcaster, yet still finds himself underemployed.