Google World – the Documentary
I had the opportunity to watch a very interesting documentary on the rise of Google. Those of you who know me (or those of you who follow this blog) know that I have an unhealthy a mild obsession with Google. That search engine, more than any other web site, completely changed the way that I use the web. Prior to Google, I used to use a combination of Yahoo, Webcrawler and Alta Vista for all of my searches. Neither engine worked terribly well and sorting through crap was a big part of my online experience.
Google has expanded since those innocent days when they were just a very good search engine. One of their stated goals is to index every single piece of information in the world. They have expanded into email, online (cloud-based) word processing/office productivity software, photo sharing, social networking, and many other areas. Because of this omnipresence and the sheer amount of information that Google collects, the company has several privacy advocates up in the air.
In response to privacy concerns, Eric Schmidt (Google C.E.O.) made a very interesting statement in the Doc Zone documentary (which you can watch online). Echoing free market ideals, he talked about how Google has to be in the business of protecting its users privacy because if it fails, the marketplace will find out, people will stop giving Google their personal information, and Google’s revenues will drop accordingly. Read more »