Just when you thought you were all alone

The Google story that I have chosen to write my post about is called “CONFESSIONS OF A GOOGLE EMPLOYEE”. This story is about Doug Edwards, a former director of consumer marketing and brand management at Google. Edwards has written a book title “I’m Feeling Lucky: Confessions of Google Employee Number 59” and he is being interviewed based off the information within the book.

                Within the interview, Edward said that the Google Toolbar scared people because of its ability to rank a website that you’ve visited. This means that Google keeps track of the sites that you’ve visited. He also mentioned that the beginning of Gmail also scared people because users believed that Google was reading their Email in order to show them advertisement. He gave another example of Google’s tracking ability when he referred to what happens if you’ve misspelled a word in Google. If you do misspell a word, the computer will ask you if you meant another word or phrase. This can only be done if Google stores your previous searches in its memory. This relates to our classroom discussions because in one of our classroom power point slides, it said that by us signing up to websites, we are giving them information that  advertisers can use to try and sell us things, develop products, and track our activity.

                In conclusion, there are pros and cons to this Google characteristic. Yes, Google has the capability to make your searches efficient and less time consuming. On the other hand, there is a natural uncomfortable feeling you will always have if you know that someone is tracking the sites you go on. This story makes you value the minimal privacy you actually have in this world.