Google represents the transition into the age of the internet and is an extraordinarily powerful corporate entity. Coming in to UMass as a transfer student, I had no idea that UMass had just recently switched from another email service; I assumed Gmail was the standard email used by most academic institutions. This belief stemmed from my high school and previous college experiences. At my previous college, much like UMass, we were assigned a school email which was powered by Google Apps. My high school also used Gmail as the foundation for our school email system. Although Google and their platforms make it easy to connect, I feel like there are significant drawbacks to using their services that often go overlooked.

Prior to taking English 302, I had never seriously considered the consequences of using Google and their services. Now that I consider them, however, I wonder if they actually outweigh the benefits. Sure, it is very convenient to be able to easily connect with your peers and work on group projects with google docs, or share information quickly with google chat, and even store lots of data on the drive and in your personal Gmail account. However, the fact that Google has access to all of that information is somewhat unnerving. Although Google claims that it won’t use the data it gathers to benefit the company, how safe one feels depends on how much they trust corporations to self-regulate and ensure that they act in ethical ways.

The article we read about Google having the ability to tell users if they possibly might have cancer sparked an interesting discussion about the reach companies should have in the personal lives of users. Personally, I believe that it would be great to have the technology available to suggest to a user that they might have cancer; it may save lives as early screening is extraordinarily helpful in the treatment of cancer. However, if Google were to implement such a technology, I feel like it would be unethical for it to be mandatory. Users should be able to opt in or out of such a service at any time in the settings, and the default should be “off” or “do not alert”. This is because taking care of one’s health is a very personal issue and people should have the option to seek medical attention or be informed if they so choose. Forcing people to do anything seems like, although it may save lives, it could potentially lead to disaster as more and more of people’s personal lives become enveloped by the Google machine. I’m all for people having options, but companies like Google should make it clear to users what the possible consequences are for using their services and not bury these consequences under mountains of fine print and terms and conditions. Furthermore, users should always be able to opt out of potentially invasive technology if they so desire.