The Wired interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt just confirms what I keep telling everyone who harps on the ‘Don’t be Evil!’ thing — ie, “But Google is GOOD! They have ‘Don’t Be Evil’ as a corporate motto!”
Me: Yeah, let’s define evil, shall we?
Google is pure Web 2.0 in the sense of how they collect and use data — user behavior helps to define their filtering mechanisms. What makes them scary and potentially evil is how freaking much data they can collect.
From that Wired article:
What does it take to improve the quality of ads on Google?
More computers, basically, and better algorithms. And more information about you. The more personal information you’re willing to give us – and you have to choose to give it to us – the more we can target. The standard example is: When you say “hot dog,” are you referring to the food, or is your dog hot? So the more personalized the information, the better the targeting. We also have done extensive engineering work with Google Analytics to understand why people click on ads. That way we can actually look at the purchase and go back and see what buyers did to get there. That is the holy grail in advertising, because advertisers don’t advertise just to advertise, they actually advertise to sell something.
When logged in to Google, data collection is nearly automatic. You can opt out of personalized search, but my money’s on 99.9% of people having no clue how to do so.
And being logged into Google isn’t exactly a case of ‘you must log in relative to search.’ Logged into Gmail today? Webmaster Tools? Any one of their 7 billion little services? Your search history is being ganked, even if you’re using the search box on your browser. (Unless you’ve hacked your FireFox, of course.)
I think some of the people who have traditionally defended Google’s information collection and use may back off a little bit now that they bought DoubleClick. The viva-Linux-we-love-Google crowd have traditionally despised anything that relates to DoubleClick, and would call them evil without even thinking about it. I don’t know that I know anyone in that crowd who would sing a merry song about ‘But Google will clean them up and make them good, like bunnies and kittens with little pink noses!’
And if it turns out I do, I will probably kick them very, very hard before I make them their very own tinfoil hat to match my own. I’m sure glad metallics are fashionable this season.