Usually when our friends ask us about something and we don’t know the answer, we tell them to Google it. Over the past decade, Google has risen to the point where it now encompasses much of peoples’ private information, but has correspondingly revolutionized the web. Many are against Google’s changes to their internet experience because they don’t want their search results to be “personalized”. Others support these changes because they allow for faster and precise search results. One New York Times blogger appreciates Google’s personalized results because he searched for restaurants in Boston for an upcoming trip and discovered such restaurants that his friends had blogged about. These results furthered into critics’ responses of the restaurants and what others like him and his friends had recommended. If he hadn’t googled it, he wouldn’t have known about where his friends have been unless it came up in conversation. Read more: http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/how-useful-is-googles-personalized-search/
Google also recently changed its private policy last month, and many are against these changes. Instead of profiling users independently on particular sites and products, Google will now combine its user’s interests under a single profile- similar to a Tumblr dashboard. It’s also easier to sign in to many accounts that Google is affiliated with- like Blogger or Youtube. Instead of having to go through the process of creating a new account, you can now sign in through Gmail (similar to what Facebook has done). Although this new policy includes economic benefits such as faster, pinpointed searches and even more targeted audiences, it takes away from the individual’s privacy. Google has responded to the opposition saying that they are not collecting any more information as they were before and that these changes are meant to benefit the users by providing them with “cool features and services”. Read more:
Google also says that for those that want to keep their privacy can simply log off and search, or even change their browser settings and cookies to prevent information from being recorded. I feel that this is extraneously tedious. In order to keep your searches and whereabouts on the net as private as possible, you would have to refrain from other Google products. For example, you would have to go “Off Record” when chatting with a friend on Gmail. Another example is clearing your browser history on Google Chrome and Youtube. A simpler way might be to go on “Incognito” on Google Chrome so that none of the cookies that record your information work, but even browsing Incognito has its flaws. From personal experience, if you close a window in which you were logged into Facebook or Tumblr, you would have to resign in. None of the extensions work either, unless you manually go to your settings and enable them.
So is the cost worth it? That depends on the person and what they value more.
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