Google and its Evil Face - Essay Example

?Gema Cuevas Dr Kemp Draft 3 Nov. 6, Google and its Evil Face Google is an everyday tool that responds immediately to anyone looking for an answer with a solution making it the most-used search engine in the world by providing any search information or tool it can in an average of less than five cent-seconds. The world declares the search engine as a mine for information, but fails to look at the down side to it since in reality Google is a corruption of the world in relation to information, privacy and security. Google states its mission as the organization of the world’s information so that it can be reached by anyone in the world. However, even when it provides plenty of information to the reader, this search engine is the worst thing to have happened to our society in relation to worsening of peoples’ reading habits, where there is no more reading in books. This is affecting comprehension of content acquired from reading books and read from Google search results. Google is a great tool to get any form of information; however, it is creating negative tendencies in our society. This is concerning Google users becoming careless on the information they search for and the safety concerns on privacy (Staff and Agencies). For this reason, searching for information on Google should involve allocation of enough time in order to search for adequate information and resources, while putting into consideration privacy and security concerns. In fact, what society gets by using Google is quantity information, and not quality, which is what people instinctively want. Therefore, the public gets into a comfort zone, which it does not intend to leave due to the ease of operation for humans in that level. For instance, on a five-year research program the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, they found out that people get obsessed with looking for information once they log on (Carr). In such cases, the users search for articles and journals that they do not necessarily read or intend to read, but instead keep searching. After this, the focus lies in skimming through the articles without taking the time to understand the concept. Consequently, people do not go to libraries to find information in books or from the periodicals rooms. As a result, Google is affecting the society through giving them quantity and by that, people stop reading books because; with only typing in Google search what they need, it would be an instant when they get the answers and all the necessary information requested. Google as any other social network wants to control what the users do. Therefore, they would not go and join other search engines, which provide email and the location where they are. Google is controlling the users by buying new markets and expanding in new areas, they get new features, a faster search and there is no one that can compete with this search engine (Rooketix Ltd). Similarly, bringing of Chrome for Android into the market has revealed how Google is potential of remembering all our browsing history and their capacity to transfer it into the cloud (Moreni). Therefore, if anyone is logged into a Google account, it is stated in the Google privacy policy that any service used will be able to track universally by using the e-mail address and your current location. Moreover, they are able to track everything you search for, and as long as you look for that same topic repeatedly, advertisements will start to appear on the sides according to the most current topics every user searches (Davies). Google based on its mission statement has gone as far as attempting to collect as much information as it can. This is in relation to creating a form of online storage the documents and other files that people have. Following the mission statement of Google, it seeks to create a database of all the knowledge that exists in the world and place it in a central place for all to access free of charge. In light of this, Google has come up with Google Drive, which saves up to five gigabytes of user documents; thus, users of Google can easily access their documents, and other files they store on the Google servers easily. The downside to this is the ease of access that Google users give to Google and its data mining technology to access their information. For example, by viewing documents on the internet, one has the option; to use his or her Google account to save the documents to the Google Drive in order to aces them later. This creates a loophole against the user for Google to use his or her information for other purposes. These purposes include collection of statistics of the most used search terms and he most accessed documents over the internet. This is a significant flop on Google’s side in building trust in its users. In addition, since Google Drive makes use of the default email application, the same password is used for all Google applications including Google drive. In this case, should a user lose his or her password, all access to the accounts is blocked meaning that one cannot even access the files he or she has stored in the Google Drive since there are user sensitive (Lilley). In addition, despite the presence of measures to recover lost passwords, should one fail to set a password recovery method, one’s files and documents remain lost forever in the internet based drive due to a locked account. In addition, Google as an online company is working towards bringing the world together through its products. These include the email application they have, the Google Plus social networking site, and YouTube. To many, this is a move towards a better world if you ask many, but a deeper at the facts reveals the opposite, as the long-term effects are detrimental to the wellbeing of individual users of Google and its products. For example, the use of YouTube is to allow individuals to upload multimedia files for the rest of the world to access and benefit while sharing in the content. However, the uploaded files have served the opposite of the intended greater good of the society through the violation of social norms and laws infringing individual rights. This is in relation to the upload of videos with people whose consent is not sought before being uploaded. This is particularly so for YouTube, which promotes the sharing of video and audio content thus infringing the right to privacy, especially for parties who like to keep their lives and identities private and away from the public and online citizens. Through this Google product, there have been numerous complaints and infringements on personal privacy for those whose consent in not sought, and in some cases leading to law suits involving those that, post the videos and those whose rights are violated (CTV News). In addition, the use of the social networking site Google Plus allows posting of photos in a similar way as YouTube thus; creating room for control in collecting personal information. This is especially so in social relationships, were the site is used as a form of data collection and mapping people. The above is further aggravated by the presence of facial recognition software, which allows people’s faces to be identified and analyzed while being matched with their names in the same website. This is similar to granting unlimited access to the public to collect information on others through electronic means for personal, commercial, or malicious use. Google is also a disgrace to the society as a whole based on its blatant violation of copyrights by its users. This is through the users posting copyrighted material on its servers and applications such as YouTube and social media uploads such as photos and music. In relation to this, Google promotes distribution of materials to unauthorized users electronically, which is clearly covered in most copyright agreements between users and owners of such works. In spite of the measures that Google has put in place to combat the vice of stealing or plagiarizing other people’s works, they are not enough as it portrays the evil face of Google towards the society. In reality, the terms and conditions that users are supposed to agree to are just a mask behind which Google hides to avoid liability from the owners of the stolen works. One would think that Google has a scheme to reimburse or cover damages, which owners of works that get pirated or plagiarized, but that is not the case. Billions are lost thanks to the use of YouTube in distributing premium content such as movies and television shows. In turn, this leads to loss of revenue and more taxation of the public in order to fund public projects. This direct implication on the society proves the poor standards that Google has in place to take care of public interests, as well as social wellbeing. In relation to human, animal and plant health, Google poses a significant threat to their existence; this is due to the constant usage of the Google search engine and video sharing facility, YouTube, in disseminating medical information. In this regard, users of Google tend to go online to check out any symptoms of any condition that cannot be explained by common theories of diseases and conditions. This is rather than making an appointment with a doctor to have the condition and symptoms examined and diagnosed appropriately by a qualified medical practitioner (Daily Mail). This puts users at risk of misdiagnosis and self-medication, where one may end up consuming drugs and other forms of medication in an attempt to cure conditions that they know not of their certainty. In the worst case scenarios, the misdiagnosis provided by Google products may lead to deterioration of conditions and even fatalities showing the dangers of having Google as part of everyday life. In conclusion, Google should be recognized as a means of spreading global corruption to society due to its influence on reading habits and privacy, as well as security. Considering these reasons, Google is a threat to social wellbeing and seeks to destroy the world of information, as we know it. Works Cited Rooketix LTD. Google Buys Out Yet Another Software Developer. Rooketix LTD. Sept. 14, 2012.Web. 30 Oct. 2012. < http://www.roketix.co.uk/2012/09/14/google-buys-out-yet-another-software-developer/5670.html > Carr, Nicholas. Is Google Making Us Stupid. The Atlantic Mag.2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. < http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ > Staff and Agencies. “Google Privacy Policy Changes Spark Europe-wide Inquiry”. The Guardian. Mar. 1, 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/01/google-privacy-policy-changes-eu > Moreni, Edoardo. Is Google Bad? Great Preneurs. Mar. 11, 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. < http://greatpreneurs.com/google-dont-be-evil/ > Davies, Simon. “Google is watching you”. The Guardian. Mar. 1, 2012. Web. 30 Oct. 2012. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/01/google-privacy-policy-changes-eu > Lilley, Stephen 2012. The Advantages and Disadvantages of Google Gmail and online Storage. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. < http://techtips.salon.com/advantages-disadvantages-google-gmail-online-storage-1095.html> CTV News 2011. Union Says YouTube Video Violated Bus Driver’s Privacy. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. < http://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/union-says-youtube-video-violated-bus-driver-s-privacy-1.681533> Daily Mail. Dangers of Dr. Google: 25 per cent of Women Misdiagnose themselves on the Internet. Mail Online. 2012. Web. 6 Nov. 2012. < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2131275/Danger-Dr-Google-25-cent-women-misdiagnose-internet.html> Read More