Google: Not quite as altrustic as it seems?
Their informal motto is short and sweet:
“Don’t be evil.”
Even though I love the sentiment, I sometimes wonder — with so many of its employees hands in the Internet’s collective cookie jar — is Google really that altruistic?
Think about it. Google offers numerous valuable utilities — for free — on the Internet. Tools that, in Google Analytics’ case, when it was Urchin, used to cost $1,500 a seat. Google’s model is free. And not just free trial; free forever.
Why?
My theory is that in exchange for these timesaving, productivity-increasing, endlessly fascinating “gifts,” you become a willing subject of the mass publisher. If you are signed in to your Gmail account, with all its gigabytes of free storage, then you’ll have ads delivered to you as you’re typing, with the very same keywords you’re using in your love letter, say, showing up slyly in that customized ad.
And if you are using Google Analytics, then your data may be going into a compilation of
