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Google threatens our right to privacy

Google (a tweaked spelling of googol, the number represented by a 1 followed by one hundred zeros) was founded in a garage in 1997 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, a pair of geeks at Stanford University. Today, the company’s products are part of the fabric of most internet users’ daily lives – and the company’s name has gone from being a proper noun to a common verb – “I google”, “you google”, “we all google”.

But as the company has grown, its informal motto “Don’t Be Evil” has increasingly been called into question. It now holds a huge volume of information on anyone who uses any of its ever-increasing number of services, be it search, email, word processing, maps or any of the myriad others. Worries have also grown that some people may put that information to use in a way that others do not desire – Google recently failed to remove from its Street View service photos and an address which gave the location of a women’s refuge which was supposed to be secret to prevent vengeful men seeking out the women who were attempting to escape them.

Today, Google rules the web – its share of the world’s search market is more than 70%, and in Britain, where it is particularly popular, it nudges 90%. Millions of people are clearly convinced that Google lives up to its own promise not to be evil – and also manages to be phenomenally useful. But, as Nick Cohen asked in the Observer: “why did Google need to spell out its determination to avoid Satan and all his works with such vehemence?” Should we start to worry?