Some of you may have noticed that Google went a little haywire yesterday, labeling every site under the sun, including google.com itself, as potentially harmful to your computer. (This label is usually reserved for sites reported to contain malicious code—think shady warez and porn sites laden with virus and trojan-laced pop-ups.) Drudge’s characterization—GOOGLE GONE MAD—may be overwrought (such is the Drudge style), but it illustrates a larger point: how smart is it to so heavily depend upon Google? How many of you rely on Gmail and Google News, to say nothing of plain ol’ search, every day? And to think, now Google wants us to store all of our data on its servers!
The cloud, a convenient metaphor to describe someone else’s server, and the storing of data therein, can be dangerous. In using the cloud, we place all of our faith in Google’s ability to keep its servers online, all the time. Say you create the best PowerPoint presentation, filled with evocative action verbs and the like, and store it on your G Drive. You go to work, launch your browser, only to discover that Google is down, taking your presentation with it. What to do? Why bother burning a CD or DVD, or moving the .ppt file over to a cheap thumb drive, when you can store it in the cloud, accessible all over the world—but only when it works!
Specific to yesterday’s problem, Google’s little malware identifier malfunctioning, it shows the pitfalls of leaving one entity in charge of protecting us on the Internet. It’s a nanny state mentality: don’t worry, netizens—how I loathe that word!—we’ll keep you safe from the online boogeymen. How about this, Google: you don’t concern yourself with labeling what’s bad and and what’s not? How about you search what I ask you to search, and stop worrying wether or not a site is “safe” or not? Leave my safety to me. If I can’t be bothered to properly secure my computer—firewall, up-to-date ati-virus software, and whatever else—then I have no one to blame but myself when I contract latest_trojan.
And, for the record, I’m not one of those people who freak out over Google’s respect, or lack thereof, for privacy. My life, such as it is, is crushingly dull, so if Google wants to store, till the end of time, that I’ve searched for Coeur de Pirate lyrics, or that I’ve recently bought a pair of rubbish Steve Madden shoes, well, so be it. What I am concerned about is so many people placing so many eggs in the Google basket, willy nilly.
I’m a google fan, but, not to defend it, but to say that the list is provided by an ONG, StopBadware, so, it THEY (StopBadware) says this and Google use it, is just because it is confidant with us.
Google believe our concerns and pointings about which site is or not harmfull through the StopBadware list.
I think you caught what i’ve said,huh? SO, sorry any mistaken done…
Best wishes
My mistake, Google said it pick their own “black list”, but with some help from StopBadware to the webmasters.
Even though, they say which one is bad, with our little “help” too.
And, no one is safe from “human error”, even the Dvd, Cd, thumb drives, etc…
But, following the past referencies from google, which are the best, in Google I trust, but I keep myself consciousness.
best wishes,
Is it possible for a corporation as large as Google to do no evil? NO! Just ask the dissident Chinese!
Maybe you should ask someone much closer to you, someone you know much more about, like Mr. Bush. Instead of just blindingly stereotyping a bunch of people on earth you hardly known.
I don’t know where to draw the line… google, yahoo, etc. It seems like as long as we are going to the web, storing data on the web, etc, we will always have someone with our personal information. The bank is another great example. They have all of my most personal information. With the current state of affairs, I trust them a whole lot less nowadays too.
Great piece. Always smart to be a ‘thinkin’
Sid
The question isn’t if you trust google. How is this google failure any bigger of a deal than going to a presentation and the projector doesn’t work?
Everything has a certain rate of failure, and if you are able to achieve as many nines out as google, then by all means, don’t use them.
The flagging of all websites as malwares gives no exception that Google also do mistakes,what I want is these mistakes should not occur agian .I think Google will take care so that these human errors not hapepn again.Having said that Google should be reliable .
I love the idea of googles malware tool, mainly against phishing sites trying to steal bank / credit card information (or facebook / myspace accounts). Even tech-savvy people still get caught out by them sometimes.
Over the years I’ve used most of the big guys in search: Google, Yahoo, Live, all the way back to Alta Vista. And even with their occasional screwup, IMO, Google is hands down the most reliable and accurate site.
That may change, but it doesn’t look likely any current player can ever match them.