Google, don’t be evil.
April 25th, 2007
Google can track our ideas and interests from conception (search patterns) to conversation (gmail) to commerce (google checkout). All great products… and I congratulate Google for lining up such a deep range of products that compete well as stand-alone services, but also can collect such valuable advertising information.
They have conquered contextual ads, they have moved into TV and radio adverts, and now bought DoubleClick’s superb technology and client base. DoubleClick’s reporting systems will certainly be useful as formats become larger and more rich-media focused - especially as TV and online continue to merge in terms of formats, targeting and reporting.
Tim O’Reilly seems confident that Google doesn’t pose much of a risk to privacy, and states that Google is being held to a higher standard than other information owners. Well, as a certain wise man once said, “To whom much is given, from him much will be required.”
April 26th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Heres a quote that Tony likes for these occassions:
“With great power, comes great responsibility”
I agree with Tim, people’s fears of privacy risks tend to be irrational and don’t fear what they should. For example Facebook by far holds more private information on me than Google even if I spend a lot of time on Google that information is far less private. And Tim’s credit card example is good too.