What's the deal with google?

Heard a bit about why it seems to be taboo around here, but with hints that there was more. Wondering what that more might be, and why it's regarded with a weird, cryptic "He who shall not be named" sort of overtone.

 

Skip owes google child support

 

I'd really like to know as well, looking through news articles I find more opinions than facts. Exactly what kind of info does google mine and abuse? Or better yet whats a good source to get the dirty facts

I've always liked google and have never really been worried about the searches I do, but I know it can be different for others with different causes .

/raise shield .....

please don't flame me too much

 

Start w/ this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/technology/internet/13google.html

http://news.cnet.com/Google-balances-privacy,-reach/2100-1032_3-5787483.html

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/projectfailures/google-plus-is-privacy-an-issue/13749

There is more though.

The problem I have isn't so much w/ google but rather w/ its users.
I know people who are using gmail, gdocs, gmusic, google chat and pretty much anything that google pabs throws at them.
On the surface that might seem fine, but it's a very slippery set up to become so reliant on one company for all your communication means that the privacy risks are exponentially increased w/ every method you use.

Google's reputation is so well armored that when their systems crashed a year or so, their customers didn't bat an eye lash. Their attitude was that it wasn't a big deal because "it was google, they'll fix it." In the end it really was not a big deal, I think less than 1% of their customers were effected. That really should not matter.

gdoc - I can see it happening now. People create docs and share them but do not back them up to their local drives. This means that if something happened to their servers you risk loosing all your files. Not worth it IMO to not DL the files locally.

Anmswer one question for me.
How does google generate revenue.
I know the answer but it's extremely important that you think about this.

 

I like going to google and typing in, "how to overthrow the government," and "how to start a revolution," to see if someone from the NSA shows up on my doorstep one day.

 

you need to do way more than that to even raise a flag.
I've done way more than that and have yet to have my door busted down.