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 twopronged 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?