The More I Think About It, I'm Scared of Google

Well, I am not scared of Google right now, I am scared of Google in a few years. Based on my previous blog where I commented on Microsoft being scared, now I think about it, it could be scary.

With Google's data mining abilities, plus, the fact they host email for millions, calendars for countless hundreds of thousands, documents and spreadsheets, plus I suspect maintain search histories for users that are logged in when they search...man, that's a lot of data.

Then I read a story recently about a murder, where the suspect said he was at home, but, using his cell phone records they figured out he couldn't have been based on which towers transmitted a couple of his calls. Then I realize Google did say I while back they are getting into the cell phone business. Add to that the fact there is increasing popularity of having GPS on cell phones and you have one very knowledgeable force in Google.

Of course, all that info has good uses and bad uses. Good uses is being able to say "hey, where is the nearest gas station" and you don't even need to say where you are. What was that bar I was at yesterday? What was that query or email from last week? The bad is that they know too.

The information this can provide for targeting advertising, however, is stellar. Geo-targeting, and behavior targeting...now that is cool. The accuracy with which they could display ads could be very good.

At the end of the day, however, this could lead to one very knowldgeable company, and with information like that being used by the wrong people, well, could have devastating outcomes. Let's just hope they stick to their mantra of "don't be evil"...and even moreso hope their definition of evil and mine are the same.