The Wardman Wire

On a comment over at Ellee Seymour’s blog, Tim Almond asked me:

“Consider the how the Internet is distorted by Google dominance. That’s where it *could* end up.”

How do Google distort the internet?

That is a huge question, and I have posted my comments over at Poliblog Perspective .

Here’s a quote from the Economist to whet your appetite:

The big new fear is to do with the privacy of its users. Google’s business model (see article) assumes that people will entrust it with ever more information about their lives, to be stored in the company’s “cloud” of remote computers. These data begin with the logs of a user’s searches (in effect, a record of his interests) and his responses to advertisements. Often they extend to the user’s e-mail, calendar, contacts, documents, spreadsheets, photos and videos. They could soon include even the user’s medical records and precise location (determined from his mobile phone).

More JP Morgan than Bill Gates

Google is often compared to Microsoft (another enemy, incidentally); but its evolution is actually closer to that of the banking industry. Just as financial institutions grew to become repositories of people’s money, and thus guardians of private information about their finances, Google is now turning into a custodian of a far wider and more intimate range of information about individuals. Yes, this applies also to rivals such as Yahoo! and Microsoft. But Google, through the sheer speed with which it accumulates the treasure of information, will be the one to test the limits of what society can tolerate.

Read the rest at Poliblog Perspective.

Tags: poliblog perspective, google, market share, fud[tags]poliblog perspective, google, market share, fud[/tags]