Google knows more about you than your Husband!

My friend sent me an article about Consumer Watchdog who is deeply concerned that "Google knows more about you than the FBI."

Google knows every mental itch you've ever tried to scratch in the last 5 years.

"The Justice Department should be worried when Google tries to obfuscate its data tracking capacity and reach rather than disclose all of it," said Judy Dugan, research director of Consumer Watchdog. "Congress should demand that Google stop tracking Americans' online behavior without their prior permission."

Google is releasing the Chrome Operating System for netbook PC's. With services like Google Docs who needs MS Office anymore? Google replaces Microsoft. It's built on Linux, it's free, and no Microsoft OS cuts the cost of a new computer by perhaps 80 bucks or so.

And who knows…. it might not need anti-virus software that clogs up your system and slows the whole experience to a crawl (my biggest gripe about Windows).

Can you think of anybody who consistently comes up with more irresistible offers than Google?

-Google has brought unfathomably powerful technology to the fingertips of every person in the modern world. Yesterday I was printing a map for a friend from out of town and I click on a link and it displays an actual photograph of every intersection she needs to turn at. Who would have ever believed it, even 10 years ago?

-I am 100% totally in favor of Google having some good, serious competition. I WANT people to have strong alternatives. Let's talk about PPC for a moment. Their rivals have just plain sucked. MSN AdCenter is a pain in the butt. Yahoo Search Marketing pay per click is cumbersome at best. MSN has only 5% as much traffic as Google and it's not as good. Yahoo has only 30% as much traffic and it's not as good.

-Am I afraid of Google becoming Big Brother? YES I AM. Google is immensely powerful. All the stuff Google knows about me? Frightening. (Especially because I use Gmail extensively). 2009 is 1984.

So what do I think about these Watchdog Groups? Some thoughts:

* The Internet is an international, world-wide phenomenon. A web server can be anywhere in the world. Any lawmaker in Washington DC who thinks they can rope this thing in has his head shoved up his ---.

* If people don't want Google to know what they're doing they can use Bing. They don't have to use Google Maps or Google Docs or Google AdWords or Google's search engine.

* Yes people can use Microsoft Windows and nobody's forcing them to use Google's OS.

* I think it's interesting that people think they have a "right" to use Google's free services, AND they think they should be able to go to Congress and outlaw Google getting paid to give them the best technology in the history of the world - maps, scholar, docs, the whole search engine - again for free.

* How about people just opt out of using Google? There's Yahoo, Altavista, Hotmail. Or, God Forbid, having their own POP email account and using software on their own computer….

* Privacy is dead. It's been dead for years. Heck, it was dead 15 years ago when marketing was about mailing lists. You can't hide. You can only blend in, if you choose to.

* ONLY the marketplace can solve this problem. Government can't, self-deluded watchdog groups can't. Only individuals can make their own choices and only innovators and entrepreneurs can build technology platforms that make the web better.

I would LOVE your comments. Is big brother watching you a bother or "who cares" attitude. Contact us at www.minocquamortgage.com or marcia@minocquamortgage.com