Is Google Taking Over?

I’m starting to wonder if Google is getting too big. I mean, they collect information on everyone and everything, it’s pretty difficult to use the Internet at all without them picking up some sort of information about you, every time you view an Adsense banner, they collect information, and now that they own DoubleClick, there’s very little we can do without triggering Google in some way.

This might not be the worst thing ever, but it gives Google information on everyone. They know what you like to look at, how often your online, what you search for, what’s in your emails, what RSS feeds you read, and so much more. Is it really fair for one corporation to have all this information on us?

I mean, my website shows Google ads, so just by looking at this website, you’re helping Google build up a profile of sorts on you. Do you really want that? I mean, is it fair that we have no say in it, something like 50% of all the websites on the internet connect to Google or something owned by Google, in some way, and it’s probably more now. I don’t know the exact figure, but I’ve heard it somewhere.

Google also have around 60% of the Search Engine market, which must be their primary method for building up information on us, as well as owning networking sites, video sites and god knows what else.

Information isn’t the only thing. Google recently announced a project which would rival one of the largest ad-free websites on the ‘net, Wikipedia, and they are advancing into pretty much every internet field there is. Google run services in Blogging, Video, Advertising, Search, Personal Space (Google Pages), Knowledge (Coming soon, Google Knol), and even Word Processing, with their upcoming online Google Docs, or whatever it is :P

I’m not saying that Google is bad, it’s my homepage and the site I use most often, but I’m wondering if what they are doing is fair? Google the search engine is the best, there’s no question about that, but is the rest of Google really playing fair?

-G