Dear Google, Don't Be Evil !

Since it's inception, Google has ran with the motto, 'Don't Be Evil', that has earned it much credit while piling criticism on rivals such as Microsoft. It claimed that it wanted to 'Make money without being evil'. This part earned it's rivals heavy chastisement as it's mask of novelty was acting as a cloud of uncertainty on the others. But has Google ever lived up to those tall claims?

The question is not whether Google is doing the right thing : it hasn't and it won't. The question instead is that, has Google, with their constant thirst for personal user data, become the largest threat to online personal privacy? Google has been known to have NOT deleted any personal data that they have ever collected. Most search engines use cookies, that expire withing months or maximum a year or two. However, Google's cookies have an expiration date of roughly 30 years !

Google has a copy of every mail you send or receive on Gmail, every direction search you've placed on Google Maps, every document that you upload to Google Docs is subject to review and scrutiny. In such an environment where safety is not a right, how is Google thriving? Google claims that no personal data is accessed by another human, but only by an e-crawler, that goes through your junk to fork out ad suggestions. Eric Schmidt went on to claim that, Google knows about the existence of the creepy line, and works just within it. But recent admissions from Google have confirmed that Google does work hand-in-hand with NSA to police the web.

Google's revolutionary PageRank system is a whole new can of worms. Labelled 'undemocratic' by many, it is frowned upon that the system is unfairly biased towards large web sites. PageRank is termed impartial, but the impartiality goes only as far as the fact that the AI does not know you personally. It involves heavy input of Adwords. It is a widely complained fact that items from the Google News Search page are oft critical of Islam, and one would not find pages critical of Scientology without explicitly searching for them.

What is the issue with Google knowing about us, you might ask. The problem is that there's no stopping Google once it has decided to compile dossiers of information on all of us. It would only take a meager effort from Google to compile people's pressure-points in one place, much like the fictional Appledor of Magnussen, Sherlock Holmes' enemy. Google Glass, that records and processes everything you see and Google Loons, that use balloons to provide WiFi that could record your position, are further spots using which Google can exploit a person's privacy.

I have nothing against Google's magnificent services, but the need of the hour is a better, more efficient privacy policy, that do not compromise a user's information. Also, it's records of all personal contact should be routinely wiped clear. Dear Google, Don't Be Evil !