Cloud Hosting Blog

We talk about Google as a “search engine” forgetting that the company’s reach is far more extensive. Realistically speaking Google is not afraid to lose supremacy online, because it has the technology to dominate our “real lives” – to survey, gather and publish private information about each and every one of us. When you walk down the street to your local baker, be aware that Google is watching!

With Google so do thousands of people. They see where you go, what you do, with whom you meet… “Privacy” is an obsolete term. You can try fighting back, but there is not much you can do. Google is literally the Big Brother, watching you from the skies, and how much it can see… well… ask Aaron and Christine Boring from Pennsylvania.

Or better, ask the US National Legal and Policy Center that just released a document that demonstrates how “private” your life is in Google’s world. The Center compiled data gathered with Google Street View and Google Earth. The data shows extensive information on a Google top executive (pdf), including the license plates of his car, the landscaping company he is using, the name of the next door neighbor’s security company, the driving route the executive takes to Google’s headquarters and photos of everything he would pass along the way.

When they speak about the Internet, Google’s executives often affirm:

“nothing you do ever goes away and nothing you do ever escapes notice.”

(Vince Cerf quoted in an article at seattlepi.com). What they fail to tell us is that there is no privacy in any world, be it online or offline, as long as Google is watching. We live in a Google’s world and we’d better get used to it.

Would there be laws to protect our privacy against Google’s scrutiny? Very much unlikely. Let’s see who else is associated with Google, shall we? Obviously NASA is the first in line. NASA technology is used in Google Earth too at least since they signed the agreement with Big Brother in 2006, but the original program that stayed at the birth of Google Earth was created by Keyhole Inc., and bought by Google in 2004. Smart buy!

In an article published at Times Online we learn that CIA enlists Google’s help for spy work. A sensational title, yes, but also a title that makes us think: is Google more powerful than CIA?

Google’s Enterprise program should also make you wonder: how many governmental agencies are actually scrutinized by Big Brother and how many of them work hand in hand with Google?

To make a long story short: in the “search engine war and beyond” Google is the puppet master!