Google frightens me...

After the readings this week and looking up some recent news articles for class tomorrow, I have to admit, I am a little afraid of what the future looks like for the Internet. We depend so heavily on the information provided by the Internet in almost everything we do these days and it is concerning to think that the years ahead could be dominated by one corporation. I do not, personally, like the idea of OpenSocial as it will give others a little too much information about me that I would rather have protected in my own personal privacy settings. In the documentary, when they showed the Maps feature, it did look cool, but the concerns they suggested in the film are the same that I would have. If anyone on the Internet can have access to a live feed of a house or street, could you imagine what personal implications that could have? Who cares if it is a “cool” idea? I see the idea of finding a way to connect all these social networks together, but my point would be that I don’t see all these networks surviving after a few years when up against MySpace and Facebook. I think it is absolutely necessary that a social networking site such as LinkedIn has no affiliation or technological connection to MySpace. They are two different breeds that serve two separate purposes.

As far as searching goes, I use Google several times a day and I have a Gmail account. I know they save and tailor my information because I can tell by the links on the right column of the page. For example, I sent an email to a friend apologizing that I forgot to call her on her birthday the day before. She responded and when I clicked into the message content the links to the right were “How to apologize effectively” and “Plan a birthday party with any theme.” If Google’s interests lie in only providing information from the web without all these other initiatives, I would not have so many concerns. However, I think they are trying to take advantage of what they are capable of and that could lead to a filtered information source that only they control. That’s scary to me.

As for the Microsoft-Yahoo partnership, I read yesterday that Yahoo turned down Microsoft’s offer of 44.6 billion dollars because they said it was too low. I’m starting to get the idea that this whole thing is a PR ploy to get their names in the media since Google has been all over the news lately along with MySpace and Facebook. I don’t think the two companies will likely work out a deal that suits both parties and is feasible to combine opposite corporate cultures.