Trusting Google

PC World has an interesting story about Google and how much we do, and perhaps shouldn't, trust Google.

Somehow, Google has convinced the world that the company isn't, in fact, evil. That's despite the fact that Google is the most powerful force on the Internet today -- a position that companies with different corporate mentalities might wield like a truncheon.

This seemed strange to me. Google's collaboration with the communist dictatorship in China was pure truncheon. They saw massive dollar signs, and weighed that against the total control of a billion people, and they took the cash! The press, probably spurred by Google press releases, went along with the line that Google has misgivings about dealing with the oppressive regime in China. The New York Times broke the story that Google's fabled password security system had been breached, and thus revealed what is likely the true motive for moving China operations to Hong Kong.

More from the story:

Given the paranoia about so many other intrusions such as government surveillance, snooping bosses, predators, whatever, it's amazing what Google has gotten away with. We've taken the candy, and in return we've given up significant levels of privacy to some huge corporate entity that we inexplicably trust not to betray us.

Ah, not everyone has taken the candy. Some of us have seen too much "evil". Google owns the host for this blog, but other than that, I use Google for nothing -- because I'm unwilling to trust this megacorporation that has too much power. I don't use Google's cloud, nor their email, nor search, nor maps.

I do find it interesting that I bash Google and our government on a Google-owned blog hosting service, and Google doesn't cancel my account. That is certainly fair and democratic -- even freeish. Yet Google helps the commies in China pull the plug on blogs that criticize the Chinese government. I guess nobody has offered Google enough money to oppress me.