When Google Runs Your Life?

[Illuminate]

Came past an old article from 2009 titled the same as this threads heading (When Google Runs Your Life - Forbes) thought, these predictions are not far off.

I still believe Google is on the verge of being something more, and is the only company really investing, and pushing call it innovation if you like, but posing the need to control everything an individual may possess in technology, within the Google family. If they had probed the smart phone industry prior to the iphone, I still believe things could have been different today.

[DIDI]

Re: When Google Runs Your Life?

^^^Do you read The Trichordist ?? You can follow them on Twitter as well .thetrichordist (thetrichordist) on Twitter

[feather]

Re: When Google Runs Your Life?

The money Google is making, its capturing of data, has made it a target for backlash. But it is a commercial entity, making money is the goal, and it's doing so by providing good services that people willingly use. In exchange for those free services, people pay with their data. No different from credit card companies and any other commercial entity capturing our data.

Same with Apple, they provide a cohesive useable, albeit closed, experience. It is completely singular. (But Google is losing it with Android, they're going down the fragmented 80s MS-DOS path because they aren't a hardware company, although they're now trying to fix that with Android Silver).

This is why they're successful. As opposed to so many less innovative archaic entities (I don't mean just tech, any brand out there that has something to sell) that are flogging their dead horses by constantly diversifying and trying to create new, smaller market demographics they can own. I see this in my line of work all the time, it's sad.

It doesn't bother me if Google run my life or Facebook owns my data. What does bug me is because I don't 'own' these services, they're constantly being tweaked and/or broken for the purpose of improvement or whatever corporate strategy invisible to the users. Eg. when Google closed Google Reader, it completely disrupted my digital life.

The question these days, when private services are used by so many people that they might as well be a utility, do the companies that created and own the services owe some kinda responsibility to the people who rely on them?

[Illuminate]

Re: When Google Runs Your Life?

^A lot of great points.

I'll have to agree with all your statements, and in your concluding point on does services owe a responsibility, to what extent does this entail? More than warranty or if someone posts a suicide note on FB - is FB also held accountable?

I also don't have a problem of technological services owning my data, I think in this day and age, it is hard to stand away from having any form of yourself being made available online.