When you think of Google, what do you think of? Convenience? Sure. Results? Absolutely. If we’re being honest, Google is there for you more often than even the closest of friends. When you need something, where do you turn first? If you’re anything like me, just “Google it!” Move over, Nike. People aren’t into doing anymore, they’re into googling. 

It’s true, the majority of us have been “googlized.” It’s a noun, it’s a verb, it’s integrated in every part of our lives. Long gone are the days of a simple search engine. Now there’s search and scholar and gmail and maps and doodle and all of these incredible applications brought to you by, none other than, Google. I like to think of Google and all of its popular features similar to Apple and it’s products — they all work and run together with a similar interface, they sync with each other via iCloud, and the possibilities for what you can do with these products are seemingly ENDLESS. What could be the harm in that?

The biggest thing that struck me from the readings this week was the issue of privacy and how little of it we have. It seems that the more Google does for us in everyday life, the less control we have over what stays private. It’s a trade-off; Yes, you want Google to sync your information and know your location and help you with whatever task you may come across, but in exchange for its services it needs and collects specific information on you that you can’t necessarily take back.

One example: Say you’re writing a research paper on sloths. You find all of these amazing articles and as you’re doing your research, you realize you forgot to cite something. How are you going to find that article again?! You can’t remember what you searched for to get that particular result and you need it NOW. Well have no fear, Google knows what you’ve searched for and more often that not it will bring you back to that, or related, search results because of the cookies in your browser.

But did you give Google permission to keep track of your online activity? With Google’s technology, are you ever even offline? Well Google user, you’d know this if you ever read the constantly-changing privacy policy and terms of use. People tend to skip over the daunting legal contracts presented to them when they sign up for particular services or use certain softwares. The default settings for such sites usually allow for maximum access to information. In order to change these settings and have any say in what Google has access to, users must “opt-out” of certain setting configurations.

So I guess the biggest question I have is, when did we ever opt-in?

Take it from our friends of South Park, ALWAYS read before agreeing to anything:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sglZGSwK6ow[/youtube]