Is Google Trying To Take Control Of The World?

Is Google Trying To Take Control Of The World?

When most people hear the word Google, they likely think about it as THE popular search engine used to quickly find your recent movie times or browse up-to-date news. Unbeknownst to many, Google is far bigger and has more influence in our lives than what most people think. Having the ability to sort and search through, archive, and know everything that happens on the Internet, to mapping every street, building, and house across the entire globe, to having their Android operating system running on the majority of mobile devices worldwide, it is hard to dispute that Google is everywhere and knows everything.


Well, it is really not uncommon to compare Google to an all-seeing eye with omnipotent abilities; they are truly a giant that has control over the flow of worldwide information. And so, if you decide to use some of their free services (and there a lot they offer) they will end up knowing more about you than you will – trust me.


So, to put things into perspective, using any of the many common and free everyday services like Gmail for your email, contacts and calendar, YouTube for watching videos and listening to music, Google Search for web searching, Google Wallet for online payment services, Google Earth and Maps for geo-location, Google Chrome as your web browser, Google Docs for online document creation and collaboration, in addition, having an Android mobile device or fitness watch or even a Google Chrome book as your computer…I mean……the list goes on……


Now, if you take into consideration that Google is on the verge of creating autonomous electric cars, and are currently providing high speed internet to several US cities, and are just now throwing their hat into ring as a cell-phone service provider, you would be then inclined to think that Google is a behemoth that knows more about most people than any other company in the world – Facebook included.


For many, it seems that we might be taking the power of Google for granted and many speculate if all of that power can help improve our lives. There is no question that using some of the free and paid services offered by Google will save you money, keep you organized, on time, connected globally, and more efficient. It has also changed our language where the phrase ‘Google-it’ is now commonplace, it has changed the way we collaborate globally from our desks, it has also influenced the news we read and it has also turned people into commodities.

Take YouTube for instance, where one hour of video is uploaded every second and over 4 billion videos are viewed a day and back in 2011 there were almost 140 video views for every person on Earth. It has made average people overnight sensations like Justin Bieber and millionaires like Jenna Marbles, who has something like 14 million followers. So, when it comes to Google and it’s far-reaching power and control, I’d say the old adage might be true and that is “with great power comes great responsibility”.


So, the next logical question would be how responsible do you think this global giant is? Well, that might be hard to completely answer questions but I can give you some examples to think about. The most recent that comes to mind is, as of last week, Google has changed the way they order and rank the websites people search for on mobile phone s. So, as of April 21st, 2015 if you use Google to search on your mobile device, your search results will now rank based on if websites are mobile-friendly. Meaning if a site can detect that a phone is browsing it and conform to a form factor that makes it easy to read and navigate then Google will rank it higher in your search. This could prove disastrous for older or out-dated websites that are not mobile responsible BUT rely on people finding them via a Google search for critical communications or business. Some people are calling it “Mobilegeddon “. Probably a harsh term, but it signifies how much people now use their phones for almost everything online and how much of an influence Google search has over global business and internet traffic.

Be that as it may, I have also heard news that Google are in the process of tweaking their global searching algorithms in an effort to rank sites higher if they support a secure encrypted https connection. So, if your site is linkable via https, like you would see when you login to your bank’s website, then it will show up higher in a Google search. Now, being a web developer myself, I know that to get a site setup properly and support the https protocol is an annual and costly fee, sometimes complicated and expensive to setup. Again, if people and business’ that use Google search for critical Internet information and business don’t comply, they will suffer.
With that in mind though, for any website who would need their site more secure from hackers (and I’m thinking about sites where you need to login or sites that store any kind of personal information on you), this would be a responsible action, but if your site exists to just provide general information like an educational or news site, then this could be a irresponsible action on Google’s part with disastrous ramifications.


So, I guess it will come down to how many services will Google innovate in and control and how many people will want to use them.

Final Note:
So, if anyone is looking to see if their site is mobile-ready for Google’s changed search rankings you can visit their test analyzer at:
http://tiny.cc/mobile-friendly


thedigitalteacher

 

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