Darryl King’s blog ireckon

Don’t get me wrong - like everyone who has been around the web for a long (read:maybe too long) time, Google has been an important part of opening the interweb up to the masses and making many web based things easy.

But…

As a closet data miner, and Information Analyser, I often wonder about when the popular masses will get as paranoid about their data collection services as they were here in Australia over the Australia Card debate, in the 1980s.

I was reading this morning a couple of interesting posts, 1 of which I tend to agree with, although I can see the value in both messages.

Michael Krigsman (on ZDNet) posts “Google is NOT your friend“, in response to Christopher Dawson’s “Google is your friend“.

I would have to be in the NOT camp, although I understand Dawson’s post is more about the availability of easy to use tools, to empower schools and educators to do interesting and useful things.

Krigsman uses the phrase “Google is a trading partner“. That I guess, for those working in the industry, particularly, is an apt way of describing the relationship. I like a lot of what they have built or do, but am not a fan of everything they do. Overall I feel that as they have grown their focus seems to be spread too thin and the user is always beholden to them, rather than a totally mutual relationship.

Google in my mind operates differently to most other web tools, and businesses. To most of us if we fail to meet and deliver to our customers demands we can find ourselves punished quickly. For Google if they want to change a standard, alter their tool and functionality, or alter what they do in any way can and have done so in the past without useful engagement with their community. Ultimately they have the power and ability to do so at the users cost with little fear of recrimination.

There is the argument that disgruntled users can always walk away and the community has the ultimate power. I tend to disagree. In the early days we had that power, we drove them to their dizzy heights by early adoption, evangelising to our pals and soaking up what they had to offer. We could have moved away if we saw it was not working right (it was so we stayed).

Now a few users moving to another site is not enough to impact them. The groundswell required to make Google listen would be very difficult to create - not impossible, but it would take them making some major decision flaws first, and even then I wonder how long the shift would take to occur, given their saturation of popular mind space with their brand.

I like to use Google, I like some of their tools, but who is managing my data, who is ultimately controlling the sanctity of it?

From Krigsman’s post: read this New York Times comment in response to yet another user’s forced account lockout:

As customers, we bring the same expectations to Google’s personalized information services, like Gmail or Google Docs, its word-processing service, as we do to our bank’s Web site. These are places that hold information very dear to us. My bank recognizes that losing access for days at a time is unacceptable. It provides me with round-the-clock phone support for account problems. So, too, should Google, even if I pay the company not in the form of a monthly account fee, but with my attention, which Google commercializes by selling slices to its advertisers.

Just remember as you use the Google tools, they are not in this for the ‘love’. It is a business just like mine (well maybe not just like mine but you know what I mean) and yours or the one you work for. Has anyone out there learned that a staff member at a company they work for or know has broken a rule / law and accessed information they shouldn’t have for their own benefit? Could this never happen at Google (please remove the rose coloured glasses now).

How do they police and manage over 16,000 employees protecting your data? Not the basic data that they are displaying, but the combined powerful data that sits within their data warehouses.

It’s just a thought.

I don’t think Google is my friend, but am happy to now call them ‘my trading partner‘. What do you reckon?