News Report #1

In the article, Google Plays Big Brother, the author discusses the new Google Chrome download. It has a very sleek and professional appearance, but the terms of agreement are quite skeptical. In one of the sections, Google states that any content that is submitted upon this new download becomes the property of Google, meaning that any research or information that is posted can be subject to public display, and can be modified, adapted, or translated for any purpose that Google may find. As the author states, this can be very damaging to businesses and corporations. Once the issue was brought to Google’s attention, their spokesperson stated that statement is being addressed and section 11 will be modified to deal with the issues, which is good to hear but will they actually go through with the changes?
Another issue with the program is their advertisements. Google makes most of its’ revenue from these ads and states that there may be an increase of them on this “improved” search engine. They claim that they will be related to the inquired information of the user, which takes us right back to them monitoring what is being put into their search engines.
This information disturbs me greatly. I do not believe that anyone should have the right to invade the everyday person’s privacy in such an intimate way. Google may feel they have the right to do so, but how can they be sure what the information is being used for? As discussed before in class, what if a student who is doing a research project on world weapons stumbles across a search for the construction of a bomb? Or maybe a person is in field work and has to be able to identify a meth lab so they must do research on the chemicals used to make the illegal drug? Google (and other spy programs) may see the straight forward red flag, but they have no way of telling what that information might be used for.

http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/09/google_plays_bi.html
Tech's Bottom Line Bill Snyder » Google plays Big Brother