I've sat idly by watching Google wage wars on first web directories, then it was sites that bought links on site such as blogs (although they didn't blacklist those sites, just removed all the link juice), and then recently sites that secretly install spy-ware onto your computer. This is all good and well on the surface, after all, who wants spy-ware on their PC? And what good are web-directories that accept any MFA (made for AdSense) site under the sun? But my question is, where does it all stop?

I'm sure we're all aware that Google is buying up many websites around the Internet. Orkut and YouTube to name 2 of them. But what happens when Google has full control of website's fates? They can simply blacklist them on Google and your website ceases to rank in Google. Would Google ever remove competitors sites from Google, or do people trust Google enough to not go that far with things? After all, they could do it under the cloak of many various reasons - whether they're bonafide reasons or not is another question.



Will Google one day own the entire Internet? Are they getting too much influence on the web? I don't quite know myself, maybe Google are the good amongst all the evil, or maybe Google initially started out with all good intentions, but are not sure where to draw the line.

Your feelings?

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The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

I originally thought Google were the good guys, but recently I'm starting to think otherwise. I think you have a valid concern with them driving out competition, let's just hope they stay "good" and don't get too power hungry.

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Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand.

Apparently after watching a documentary on Google. Working for them is meant to be very layed back and they basically play snooker all day lol.

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www.jooney.co.uk - the online portfolio

From a different perspective, I have a client who spends thru me about $15,000 a MONTH on a pay-per-click program with Google. They did this for about 15 months. Only recently, when they could no longer afford it, they cut it way down to $5k a month. Their rankings fell WAY down to the 5th page and beyond. Is that Google's way of forcing you to pay them $15k a month OR ELSE? I'm not to sure which way I'm thinking about Google. I used to think they were the best, but so sure any more. It is now all about the money, I'm afraid.

I've got clients that actually dropped way down after implementing Adsense.

Personally I love almost everything about Google. They came through when it was popular to cram as much @#$% on a page as possible and gave me a little search box. The government came to them asking for access to their search logs - Google told them to "@#$% off". Google continues to come out with new and exciting products and has always kept developers in the loop throughout every venture - something Yahoo had NO interest in for a majority of it's lifespan.

All-in-all I'd much rather complain about google than someone else.

I personally don't think it's exactly Google's fault that the price of ppc is so high. I think the fact that companies just get so competitive with each other that they'll pay anything to be first (since for most companies ppc gets a good percentage of their traffic). I am sure Google is and was quite aware of this when they wrote of the business plan for ppc, but I do not believe the blame can go to Google for this. Just my opinion !

You may just have a point there, Susan. If you think about it, Google are in a really good position in terms of their standing on the Internet. They hold the keys to a major doorway. If they don't want a website in their search engines, then they're judge, jury and executioner. It's entirely up to them, nobody else.

Being so obsessed with money to the point where you begin ousting competitive websites might be just around the corner for Google, or it may not be. Who am I to say? There's no denying though that they've got a good foot-hold when it comes to the Internet and anything is possible with Google's influence. I certainly wouldn't want to see that transition from good to bad. I think there will be a lot of boycotting of Google going on if too many people do decide they've not got the best intentions at heart.

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The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

Live search for the win!

google has control over a frightening amount of information about our world, so all i can say is that i only hope that they stay on the good side.

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http://www.mattvarone.com

Here's a good article I found a moment ago that fits nicely in with this topic. I'm sure you'll appreciate this article, Susan, having first-hand experience with Google.

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The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

They do seem to be straying from their motto "dont be evil." However they are not idiots, they wont do anything that could ruin them. That is, if its possible to ruin them.

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The scary thing is that you don't know what google does with all this information, do they really only use it for some advertisements.

There is a really good movie about this at http://www.masterplanthemovie.com/.

It's a tough one, VI. It depends what Google's overall goal is as to how worried they are about being ruined by their involvement in sharing private data.

Sjag, I assume they're books, but I've just watched the short video which poses a few notable questions. The trouble is, even if people started to rebel against Google, Google has enough information to open up any website on the Internet and target big groups of people based on their profiles.

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The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

No matter how evil google is becomming, they are still unquestionably the best search engine out there. For that reason everyone (myself included) uses them.

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I don't think Google is doing anything evil, you just have to play their game correctly, and you win!

You don't have to pay dearly for your page rank if your site is good enough, if you're paying $5k or more, you're seriously not doing so well! If your page rank matter that much to you though, I guess it's worth it? I don't really pay attention to page rank anymore, it's sooo over rated.

Even if they do take over their competition, isn't it for the best? All the businesses that Google takes over end up doing very well, maybe even better than they were before Google acquired them

I think on the Internet, Google will own a lot of stuff in the near future... kinda like how Tesco want to do everything, but that's on the high streets. Tesco and Google will rule the world... then they will merge and planet earth will be known as planet Google!

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Not quite a n00b...

I heard a whisper that the Google was working closely with the CIA behind the scenes, although I believe that's all hearsay, and I don't know much more about it than the hearsay so I can't really comment. I don't know if they are or not. As long as Google provided free milk as well, I'm all up for it!

Google is definitely the #1 search engine out there, and they've definitely cracked down on some of the bad guys of the web. Page rank is, admittedly, fairly easy, but like Jay, I don't pay much attention to it either. I pay more attention the Alexa rank because although the Alexa rank is not perfect, it does give you a good idea of where you stand on the web.

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The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.

Speaking of cracking down on bad guys, have you checked out OpenDNS? (www.opendns.com)

It's a great free, fast, and reliable DNS service

Well, if you look at this logically, they have control over "nothing". All they do is index information on the internet, Google has no control over what gets published or changed.

Their taking over ze worldz! also lol at pic.




Edit:
P.S. Google should have just remained a Search Engine, as it originated from! But I do like GMail :]