A short reminder of what Google knows about us. Beware.
The topic that this report is covering is the way that Google works on showing us the information we are looking for and also storing our personal information. The way that Google works has always been criticized by many people but this report will hopefully show both sides of this issue and also help raise awareness to people of how much information Google would already know about them just by them using there facilities. This report will also show how the storing of these details could be a security risk if any of those details got leaked out to the public.
The idea behind Google was developed when two Stanford University graduates, Larry Page and Sergey Brin met in 1995. Although they did not get along and both had varying computer ideas they both realized that someone had to make a device to sort through all the information on the web and put it into some logical order to be retrieved when needed. This is where a company called Backrub was made until 1998 when it was officially renamed as Google Inc. Larry and Sergey continued to work on their search engine making many different improvements that brought Google into the top 100 websites in 1998. Google continued to grow and became the worlds largest search engine with over a billion-page index. Google has also managed to keep many secrets from the public including their very top-secret methods of calculating the top links for each searched result and also how their search engine actually works. All this has gained suspicion that Google might have a deeper interest then just providing the webs information to users.
With so many secrets being kept from the public, many people have developed their own conspiracy theory of what Google might be doing with all this information they have gathered. This report will state a few theories but will also stick to the facts. As stated before Google could be considered as a huge security risk for anyone who uses its facilities. One of the risks that Google presents is that it makes a cookie for every person who visits the Google web page. This lets Google define you from everyone else and therefore can store all your search information. Google also recently added an email service that although offers over a gigabyte of storage to every user for free it also allows Google to scan your emails and store them indefinitely to do with as they please. Now with the new Google map on its website you can look at maps and satellite pictures of your local area and mark out your house and special routes you may want to take. With these three services Google is collecting what you are interested in, whom you are talking to and also where you live. With all this information collected into a database we are giving them total trust and total authority, which is giving them a lot more power then is safe.
Presides collecting all your person details Google also has the ability to show and hide whatever information from the web as it wants. When Google went online to China it allowed the Chinese government to censor certain phrases from the Chinese public
With Google's growing popularity it has become the most well known search engine on the web. With this power and very small competition Google can censor or restrict certain websites, companies or ideas completely and can only show you the information that it wishes. With this total authority over the web, websites are dependent on their information to stay in Google's database and therefore will delete or edit in accordance with what Google wants.
