1 Oct 2006

google it

Google it!!!! I was Orkutting at office. Sound familiar???? I’m sure that for most active internet users this has become a part of their vocabulary. Google that derived its name from Googol, (which was the name given to the highest named number, ten to the power of hundred ) has become an integral part of the World Wide Web. After their search engine which became very popular, Google started with an email service called Gmail. It offered 1GB of storage space that was unimaginable at the time, since most of the other free email service providers were giving hardly around 10MB. Users rushed to obtain Gmail ID’s.

However, this came at a price. There would be content specific advertisements (ads) next to the mail. A lot of hue and cry was made about Google being able to go through our “personal” mail. When Google released a statement that it would be done by filters and not human intervention most of the privacy debates subsided.

After this technology was tweaked, it transformed into ads at sites. A web site administrator could add code to his site that would perform the same function as delivering content specific ads. To promote its use the administrator was given a percentage of the profits which the site generated for Google. Earlier only very popular sites would get paid advertisements. Now it was open to everyone. With the advent of the blog craze, Google ads began appearing everywhere.

Then came Orkut. An online community which has everyone hooked for its ease of use and aesthetic appearance. A networking site whose popularity has grown in leaps and bounds.

“Yeah, yeah!! I know all this. What is your point?? Where are you going with all this?” well, as I was thinking about the popularity of these and many more Google products a strange idea passed through my head. That of Big Brother is Watching you. I know this may sound crazy. But humor me for sometime. Suppose, heaven forbid, some scrupulous person was to become the head of Google. What would be the amount of personal information that he would have about us?

I mean, I was recently invited to join a program on the net where every click you make surfing the web generates money for charitable causes. You guessed it right, it’s a Google venture. Now one wonders what they would gain out of doing this. I know it is said that they will gain good will. And that the agreement says that they won’t collect any identifiable data. But just for a second assume that one person who wrote the code is. He would know whatever we do on the web. He would be able to see what are friends think of us and what we think of them (Orkut). He would know about the correspondence that we share with our friends and relatives (gmail). He would know how we respond to advertisements at sites we visit. He would be able to understand our personal choices and what affects us the most. Pretty much everything that makes us who we are. Our decisions, choices and preferences are out there. In other words our whole virtual profile is out there and can be potentially exploited.

Am I insane??? Ok. Let me put it this way. Many of us have used Google Earth or heard about it. It can show us any place on Earth in fine detail. This includes our military and naval bases. The American government forced them to remove the white house from Google Earth and many governments followed the precedent. But I myself have seen the whole layout of the Rastrapathi Bhavan (The President of India’s official residence) and the two houses of parliament. It may not be available to the general public now. But say it is still available to a select few. Say maybe me. Imagine then if I were also able to find a way to show every person on this map. I could pretty much have everyone under my thumb

Not really you say. There are other modes of communication like phones. Ok. So what I will do is I will offer a service where people get a percentage of my profits for calls received by them on such phones. Won’t a majority of the people opt for this???? Also supposing I were to offer a banking service that provides superior services and lesser charges. I could then have the financial details of a huge number of people too.

Sound too much like a work of fiction???

Well, let me redefine my assumptions then. What if the scrupulous person were the government? Recently I have seen people give up more and more of their rights. In the war on terror, one can be detained for an unlimited period of time for being a suspected militant. Companies have to cough up confidential information like bank statements of people. Reporters are made to reveal their confidential sources “in the interest of public safety” by court orders. One can be made to undergo a strip search at the airport for “suspicious” behaviour. Freedom of speech has been curtailed for fear of violent repercussions.

Am I being paranoid? I am not sure But when I think of it, Google has expanded so much into so many different important spaces that it is unsettling. We used to rely on other human beings for information on various products and places. Now we look it up on the net. Our human relations are being reduced to the bare minimum for the emotional aspect that has yet to be duplicated. More and more people are looking at the internet for doing everything in their lives. This includes education, classes, novels, movies, reviews, shopping, banking etc. It could reach a critical level that without the internet we would be at a loss of how to go about things. In such a scenario I shudder to think of what the consequences of one group having a controlling interest in every ones lives could do.

Still sound like fiction?? Well let us hope it remains so.