Paranoid yet?

I’ve always been amazed at the Google and what it stands for. To almost everyone in the world, its the best thing to happen this century, information is available at your fingertips, their applications are just what a user wanted and everyone is happy with it. Google is cool, Google is smart and its saved everyone at least once by providing them with more than the information they need at a click of a button.

So if I next ask you whether you welcome spyware and trojans into your system or do your best to keep them out, it might sound like a very wayward question, isnt it. I mean first I talk about Google and then suddenly change to viruses..??? Well lets just take a look at some things one at a time. Have you heard of companies like Norton, Symantec and Mcafee? Well, they are bunch of guys who happen to big players in the anti-virus and similar software industry? So if I say Google is the biggest spyware you will ever encounter, would everyone jump up and shout outrageously at me?

I might not cover everything Google has in their arsenal of online weapons but I’ll put down a few I can think of and you can take your grey cells to task from there onwards.

Google AdSense - AdSense records and tracks millions of users every day who make billions of clicks all across the net. Isnt it the same as having analytics installed on every website that participates in the program – accessible only to Google! They can track anything - from browser clicks, links, referrals, anything and everything you do on your system. Of course the information is required to fight click fraud, but I am sure Google finds many more uses for the information they generate.

Google Analytics - Analytics helps track websites, this is more a sales tool. Without the analytics data, Google won’t have inforamtion on any of the sites. Now you have to understand that the real goal of the analytics is to collect data. So Google Analytics collates all the data and has access to conversion rates – isnt this enough for them to play with PPC on conversion rates and revenues – this of course theroratically speaking. I do hope they arent since a lot of marketing dollars are going out through me on the same.

Google Cookies – Google’s super smart cookie allows you to save preferences, set default languages, filters and number of search terms and what not. Now remember that the cookie has a unique identifier which tracks all searches, all visited sites, the amount of time you spent on those sites, what keywords you used, what type of similar sites you visited and a whole lot of related data. Its almost like me standing over your shoulder and seeing everything you do on the internet – really not a nice thought is it?

Google Toolbar – Yep, while the every page you access gets sent to Google, it may also be tracking more than just web pages, but entire browsing behavior. Just think of what an advertiser could do with this kind of information!

Google Checkout – This is where Google actually brings you forward, and not be an encrypted set of alpha-numeric phrases – you actually become a little more human here since it works as a connector - connecting user cookies and other identifiers to a real name, with a real address and credit card number (yes, credit card details!!)

Google Chrome - Chrome is a very interesting browser, it has a unique identifier (created by default of course!) so Google will always know you and what you are browsing. Add to this that there is a typing tracker, which means every time you type in something in the address bar – Google records it. Come to think of it, why else would Google create a whole new Browser and spend a whole bunck of money when they are already doing that with $70 million a year on Firefox…??

Gmail – Every mail you open, you see advertisements related to keywords in your mail on the right side – have you noticed? This is because you are sharing your mail with Google!
Google Desktop - Google scans your computer, checks out everything you have in your system (with their own technology) and it transmits whatever it finds on the hard drive back to the Google's mothership of data collection.

Google Maps – Ok, so now you know that there are cookies in your system (and they arent the eating kinds) and that they track what you do. When you want to find out how to get from your home to some place, you search on G maps right? Do that several times (routes from home to different places) and Google will know where you live. Its simple isnt it – you search from point A most times – this Point A is most likely to be your home, office or loved ones home… so now Google knows where you live! Muwahahaha :D

So basically what we’ve done is given Google a whole load of information about ourselves, our addresses, contact details, credit card and financial information, interests, habits, friends, views, dark secrets and only you know what else… So how safe do you feel now? (evil grin… J ). Well, all this is just my opinion and so that Google doesn’t send across their bots to read this and sue me!! I’m sure Google uses all the information in the right way or atleast I hope they do. You can take this to be my second piece of fiction, how good was it? It has detailed information, well researched and may be fabricated data, a neat little storyline, involvement of the reader and a suspense ending!