You probably already noticed that there’s a lot of anti-Google sentiment out there. If someone awoke from a ten year coma today, they might be puzzled. They might assume that Google manufactured cigarettes or perhaps chopped-down rainforests as a sport.
I’m as critical as anyone else when it comes to the things that Google could and should do better, especially when it comes to the AdWords system. But overall, I have to admit to being a Google fan. I use their services countless times a day, and without them, my life would be significantly different, and probably significantly more difficult too.
I’m not, however, a Google cheerleader. And as little patience as I have for the Google Conspiracy Theorists, I am sometimes a little concerned by how much data Google have on all of us. Google Analytics tracks us when we trawl the web, as does the Google Toolbar, websites displaying adsense ads, ISP relationships, site search on partner sites, search data, Gmail and more. It’s a little unnerving at times, and Google are now about to ask for more.
“It’s no secret that from time to time many of us have searched on Google for our name or someone else’s. When searching for yourself to see what others would find, results can be varied and aren’t always what you want people to see — whether it’s someone else with your name, or the finishing time from that 5K you ran back in 2002. We want to make that better and give you more of a voice.
To give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name, we’ve begun to show Google profile results at the bottom of U.S. name-query search pages.
…
Don’t have a Google profile? Just search for [me] and follow the instructions at the top of the page to create one. In just a few minutes, you can create a public profile that represents you and that appears when people search for your name on Google.“
This is potentially quite ingenious, but if you think Google are offering the chance to remove unwanted information, think again.
Google Profile is essentially nothing more than a means of giving Google more information. And today’s web users are increasingly aware that their details are a commodity.
Google’s typical users aren’t as stupid as Google sometimes seems to think they are. Or are they?
