Earth to Google -- Get Your Head Out of the Stratosphere

By Kamau Austin

Google, in route to becoming both the librarian and card catalog of all human knowledge is quickly expanding its reach beyond the information found on the Internet and World Wide Web.  Google is also becoming more accessible on wireless devices like cell phones and PDAs (or what I call the cyber or digital ether).

Not long ago Google purchased a company called Keyhole, which gave them access to aerial maps of the world shot by satellites circling the Earth.  The purpose of this service seemed to be similar to the wildly successful Yahoo! Map service.

However Google Earth, the outgrowth of buying Keyhole, is truly more like a map service on steroids.

With Google Earth, a service like Yahoo! Maps is truly elevated to the next level. Google Earth's tagline is -- a 3D interface to the planet. 

In theory not only can you get a map and directions to drive to a location, you can even now see high resolution pictures of the streets and neighborhood of your destination.

You can even see areas around the world without getting on a plane.

Not a bad technology right?  But let’s take a closer look at this development.

Let me digress slightly and state some people who read my blogs and articles on a regular basis may think Google is the company I love to hate. Not really, I just want them to step off their high holy horse of Internet Iconomy.

I know Iconomy is not a word, but what better term to describe a major established Internet brand shot full of hubris. Google has many times been found to be one of the world’s strongest corporate brands by marketers who do this type of research.

But Google is a lot more than a major corporate brand. It has become an Internet Icon synonymous with search.  The term googling is becoming a phrase used for searching the web on the search engines.

Moreover, just criticize Google, as I have been known to do on occasion, and see how much email you get from people who seem to take on the role of Google apologists.

Google has become a major Internet Iconic brand without major media advertising.  In short, the major Internet surfing community at-large has elevated Google literally into the stratosphere on top of online search.

Since the Internet community, purported to be 1/4th of the world’s population, has built Google into an Iconic brand it has a vested interest in protecting the brand.  Although we all either love or revere Google, can we afford to let it do whatever it wants?

Of course Google is a company with a bounty of capital.  More impressive however is Google has even more intellectual capital. I guess for such a company a little hubris is to be expected.

However, at some point they have to come back to earth with their product Google Earth. Recently in India and also other so called third world countries they are asking that Google Earth not show high resolution satellite photographed images of their capitals.

Governments abroad are asking for privacy because they are afraid terrorists will get their hands on these aerial photos and plan attacks. I think this is a reasonable fear these foreign governments face. It is also reported that Google has backed away from providing photos of the US capital and government buildings.

The big companies and governments may be able to negotiate privacy from Google's peering eyes, but the rest of us seem like an after thought to Google's grand scheme of domination of the digital ether.

Earth to Google -- not just governments, but we regular people need some privacy protection too!

Can you imagine a stalker or criminal watching your house and observing your movements from a remote location for days in order to attack or rob you?

This is on the heals of Google providing autolink features to add links to webmasters pages, and image search which enables web searchers to rip-off webmasters copyrighted art files. Is it just me -- or is Google totally out of control?

Earth to Google -- get your head out of the stratosphere, and give us mere mortals down here on earth -- a hearing and a chance!

Privacy protection should not die on the altar of your lofty and ethereal goals for omni-info domination.

Google's plan seems to become the search engine of all human knowledge and information.  It isn't their plan or end goal that is so questionable, but their means to achieve this goal is what is so threatening at times.

A prominent technologist once said "privacy is dead... get over it."

But Earth to Google -- even a regular guy like me knows if you erode privacy isn't freedom ultimately also the next causality?



Kamau Austin is publisher of www.eInfoNEWS.com and runs www.SearchEnginePlan.com.  He is author of Always On Top "How to Get the Highest Search Engine ranking for your website. See more about his strategies at www.AlwaysOnToptheBook.com