{"id":2987,"date":"2011-11-08T04:11:16","date_gmt":"2011-11-08T09:11:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=2987"},"modified":"2011-12-12T08:16:20","modified_gmt":"2011-12-12T13:16:20","slug":"growing-google-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/growing-google-concerns\/","title":{"rendered":"Are The Growing Google Concerns Fair?"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Google’s ascent to the top of not only the internet world but the entire global business world comes the expected amount of complaints about its practices.\u00a0 This isn’t to say that the complaints are all knee-jerk, more that there’s probably some statistical average of, shall we say, \u201cyuck\u201d that a company needs to participate in, in order to get that far.<\/p>\n

So this isn’t unexpected.\u00a0 The bigger question is, is it fair?<\/em>\u00a0 For those of you not aware of the nitty gritty, we take a look here at some of the biggest complaints lodged against the king of search engines, maps, and about 50 other services, to see whether or not they deserve all of the bad rep they’ve gotten.<\/p>\n

Site rankings \u2013 what’s fair?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem<\/span><\/em>: Google is still thought of first as not only the world’s most used search engine, but in some cases the world’s only search engine.\u00a0 \u201cGoogle\u201d is a verb; you never hear someone saying that they are going to \u201cBing\u201d their name.\u00a0 This has placed immense importance on the search engine’s results, which in turn, has caused some to object that the rankings the search engines give to certain results are not fair.<\/p>\n

Our take<\/span><\/em>: The problem with this objection is that we have now collectively come to any real determination about what a \u201cfair\u201d search engine would look like.\u00a0 An example of this is the complaint that newer sites often get nudged out in favor of those of established sites.\u00a0 But is that not arguably a good thing?\u00a0 If I made a website tomorrow called the \u201cToyota Checkers Club\u201d, should the term \u201cToyota\u201d really give equal weighting to both my site and the car manufacturer?<\/p>\n

A more reasonable complaint is in the assertion that Google may favor their own sites and products disproportionately to that of other web sites that are just as popular and established, offering the same services.\u00a0 Google has responded in turn that they do not \u201ccook the books\u201d to favor their own sites.\u00a0 Are they telling the truth?\u00a0 On this one, we suggest stepping back and seeing what the hard data says before drawing any conclusions.<\/p>\n

The China Syndrome<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem<\/span><\/em>: As big as Google is, they are still subject to the law.\u00a0 Being a global company, this means that they are subject to many competing laws.\u00a0 While some of them have drawn little criticism, such as their compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and removal of child pornography web sites, it was their alliance with the Chinese government that drew the greatest condemnation.<\/p>\n

China has had what is known as the \u201cGreat Firewall\u201d in place for roughly a decade now, and if Google was to take part in Chinese electronic society, it would have to submit to its requirements.\u00a0 For a while, they chose to do exactly that, and a firestorm of complaints followed.<\/p>\n

Our take<\/span><\/em>: It is perhaps a minority position, but we consider this the most unfair of all the complaints made against Google.\u00a0 China’s policies are not Google’s fault. To the end, it appears that Google stretched China’s electronic rules to their limits.\u00a0 One example of this is the fact that users who had their search results censored, as happened with people who attempted to find information on, for example, the Tianamen Square Massacre, were told that they had their results censored.\u00a0 This is a rather amazing concession, as it practically begs the user to hack around the firewall to find out more.<\/p>\n

Moreover, what Google probably realized and Chinese authorities didn’t, is that users who want to get around their restrictions can.\u00a0 Hackers live by getting around restriction.\u00a0 So while governmental buffoons are running around trying to find what the hot term of the day is to censor, the billion users are finding hundreds of new terms to say the same thing.\u00a0 Playing along with the Chinese government probably did wonders in letting those who knew how to play with Google’s systems to get out of it what they wanted.<\/p>\n

And when even that wasn’t enough and China started hacking Google for user information, they finally pulled the plug.\u00a0 No, on this one, we can’t convict.<\/p>\n

Privacy concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n

The problem<\/span><\/em>: We probably don’t even need to define the problem.\u00a0 Any company whose currency is information is naturally going to get involved in situations in which they are accused of using that information inappropriately.\u00a0 There are too many examples of this to easily list here.<\/p>\n

Our take<\/span><\/em>: The problem with this complaint is that while it is in an area which one would be rightly concerned about, so far few of the complaints have been that specific.\u00a0 They have mostly taken the form of noticing cooperation between Google and various governmental authorities, but not making much of the way of exact charges.\u00a0 This leaves us in a grey area of worry without hard evidence.<\/p>\n

We are not going to go so far in this case as to de facto clear Google of all wrongdoing.\u00a0 What we can say is that we are not seeing the tendency we see in, say, Facebook, to see just how fast they are capable of selling themselves out.\u00a0 We’re not saying it’s not there, only that as of right now, we need to see more solid data.<\/p>\n

Other concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n

Summarizing some of the other complaints about Google we have the following:<\/p>\n