This weekend, I started then stopped booting Google from my computing life. I like Google products and services, but worry about the company’s potential abuse of power.
On Thursday, on my work blog, I wrote about “The Google Problem” Google’s increasing search and online advertising dominance greatly disturbs. Situation might be less worrisome if Google wasn’t so damn secretive. The company controls large trolls of information, while keeping its own disclosure to a minimum.
I judge Google by its action, not the mystique of its brand or seemingly Teflon-coated resistance to criticism. Google is a monopoly in the making and perhaps far more dangerous than the worst fears about Microsoft.
Mother hen Google is collecting her brood of misfits—open source advocates and Web 2.0 developers—but there’s a wolf beneath the costume. “You can make money without doing evil,” from its 10 Things, simply is impossible for a public company. Ethics are defined by shareholder value, at least for a company with huge share price as Google. For all its faults, Microsoft focuses more on customers, because it has to. Microsoft’s stock price is moribund and the company has loads of existing customers it needs to sell to again.
Anyways, my trust in Google is weakening.
Photo Credit: Danny Sullivan