Criticism Of Google

By: Kyle Singler

Privacy Policies

• One of the main concerns regarding online search is that an individual’s information is kept private.

• Due to the Online Privacy Protection Act of 2004, Google was forced to let its users know that they would be pooling all the information they collected from their various services (google-watch.org).

• This declaration made some Google users skeptical since there was a perception that Google valued and defended privacy.

Privacy Policies (cont’d)

• There are many reasons why Google users don’t want their information recorded.– Information could be used to discriminate against.• Insurance• Employment

• The Google public relations department built trust with users by perpetuating the “Don’t Be Evil” motto and focusing on privacy.– Users distrusted Microsoft and Yahoo more.• Public sentiment has shifted lately.

Copyright Issues

• Like many other online media channels, Google has been accused of copyrighting the work of others.

• Many organizations have demanded that Google removes reference to supposedly copyrighted material on other web sites based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) (wikipedia.com).

• Google has responded to these complaints by removing links to copyrighted materials.– Google has taken additional steps to ensure that it offers the

largest amount of information possible under the law.• Contract with the University of Michigan.

Copyright Issues (cont’d)

• Innovative contracts– University of Michigan• Google will provide only excerpts of copyright text in a

search. The contract says that it will allow people to reproduce portions of text of copyrighted material for research purposes.

Energy Consumption

• Google stores thousands of computers that run its technology and power its website.– These computers require an immense amount of energy.

• Google has been criticized for the amount of energy necessary to maintain its servers (wikipedia.com).– Pressure to use clean energy.

• These concerns have forced Google to think about energy conservation in all aspects of business.– Google can take store a few DOC servers that would replace

the work of the thousands of computers.• Downside: If one DOC server goes down, Google’s network has a

greater chance to be affected by the crash.

Privacy• Daniel Brandt discovered that Google had placed a cookie

on each users computer, which could be used to track peoples search history (timesonline.co.uk).

• Google’s online map service, “street view” has also been accused of invading people’s privacy in their homes or walking down streets who do not knowing they are being watched (wikipedia.com).

• In addition to cookies and map services, Google has been criticized for their Gmail policies.– People without Gmail accounts, who have not agreed to the

Gmail terms of service, feel that their privacy has been compromised without their permission.• Google claims that this is not true.

PageRank

• Common arguments:– Unfairly biased towards large websites.– Criteria for a page’s importance are not subject to peer

review.• In September 2007, the Australian Consumer and

Competition Commission (ACCC) brought a two-pronged case against Trading Post and Google. – Included Google Australia and Google Ireland.

• Google mislead consumers by selling its ranking to commercial companies rather than sorting them by relevance.

antiGoogle

• Scroogle.org is the antiGoogle (timesonline.co.uk)– No advertisements.– Survives on donations.

• Scroogle doesn’t even run on its own technology– Relies on “scrapping” off of the search results for

Google

• Traffic from Scroogle has doubled every year– Surpassed 100,000 visitors a day

antiGoogle (cont’d)

• Scroogle keeps no records of who is using its site or what its users are looking for.

• All the big search engines have been tightening up privacy policies to make users feel more secure.– Does this leave an opening for a search engine like

Scroogle?

antiGoogle (cont’d)

• Is there a limit to privacy?• Search records have increasingly been targeted

to the police– Last month in North Carolina a court denied a man a

retrial after he was convicted of murdering his wife. • Google was one of the main witnesses.• The police were able to obtain keywords from Google such

as “neck”, “snap”, “break” and “hold”.• The lawyer showed that the man viewed a document

entitled “22 Ways to Kill a Man With Your Bare Hands” prior to the murder.

Thank You

• Questions?