Why Google?

Many people have raised concerns about the trustworthiness of Google and all the services that google provides. I understand; in an age of information, and the open exploitation of people's personal information for gain and marketing, it can be hard to trust a corporation with anything.

There are also those that get very upset about the heuristic nature of google searching, which also, has merit.

I use google because I consider it to be trustworthy and the heuristic searching makes things significantly better, overall.

I'll explain. Have you ever read Google's service agreements? Neither have I. Honestly, I blow past them in a the blur of a new application faster than... well, it's fast. From what I've seen, Google requires your authorization to release your information to anyone for any reason. I mean, they ARE their own advertising agency (Adsense anyone?) so any information they've gathered on you (marketing-wise) is used to filter out advertisements that will not interest you.... eg. if you're constantly searching for product X, then google will show you ads regarding product X or it's competitors, retailers, accessories, etc. it will do this automatically, the people that made the advertisement, tell google, or google derives from their ad, what they're trying to sell, and their target market. If you're not in it, why would they show you that ad? It makes no marketing sense.

My point here is that advertisers come to google with an ad, a site to link it to, and a target market (demographic data) - google then shows the ad to people who fit that pattern of viewing, YOUR information never leaves google; with the possible exception of being part of a statistic, which I would consider to be fair. (eg, you're one of X people that google'd the new iphone... or whatever)

In addition to targetted ads, google can also figure out what you google'd and what site you went to, and if you came back to google after visiting the site. This gives google a very small idea as to whether or not the site is relevant to the search. obviously keywords and meta data is factored in, and for very unique searches, it definitely is, however, for very common stuff, there's SO MUCH data out there, and there's a lot of BAD or MISLEADING information on the internet... For example, let's say the website for a resturant, let's say, the Keg, since it's common, let's say the programmer didn't really add a lot of meta data, so the phrase "the keg" does not uniquely appear on the site in anything more than the URL, and perhaps .jpg references or something. That's not a lot to go on. but imagine a firm who's main job it is to sell vacations, and one of the big selling points at a more major destination is that they have a keg resturant. The marketing firm, selling vacations, is going to use "The Keg" in every way, shape and form, increasing that phrase's hit count when being indexed... imagine there's quite a few marketing firms like that..

Now imagine you google "The Keg" without heuristic data, it would be a mess. the keg's website would probably be on page 15 buried among coupon offers. However, with heuristic data included, google would logically factor out most of these sites, since many people who google "the keg" would visit them, thinking this is a way to get to the keg, or information on the keg, then be bombarded by not-keg-related material, go back to their search, and keep trying. The massive amount of returns from that site would indicate to google's search engine that maybe, this site is not as related to "the keg" as the meta data suggests.

Additionally, when people go to the ACTUAL Keg website, they end up going and not coming back, either they close the tab/browser, or they browse the site for a long time and likely never come back to google, since they found what they wanted... potentially coming back to do another search, but not for the same thing. This would indicate that maybe this site is more relevant than the metadata would suggest.

Obviously this is not actually a problem, since if you google "the keg", www.kegsteakhouse.com/ is the first link.

My point is, Google, time and time again, has given control to it's users. Even with Google+ it's easy to delete your entire profile and all related information. Or back it up. Or not. It doesn't matter. You can delete the pictures from your picasa web album, making them unavailable forevermore. You can delete their references on your G+ account. You have full access to tag, untag, delete, or edit any of your comments, or delete unwanted comments from your posts. Your information is yours, and google knows, and respects that.

Sure, one day, Google could go bad and become the next facebook (but much much worse), but as far as I'm concerned, that day, according to all the evidence so far, will never happen.

In addition to that, without the heuristic data they use, searching online would be less than useless. You would never reach any relevant data, and with information growing and expanding constantly, there's no way anything that's remotely useful now, that doesn't classify results by relevance based on user data, there's no way it will be useful for long.

I love google, and everything it provides. and as a disclaimer, that doesn't mean I think everyone else's products are bad, or not worthwhile, or should not be used/enjoyed.... I just prefer google myself, I think they're awesome, and I'm sure google does too. If you disagree, that's fine, you're just dead to me.

Android

Dear Google,

I love your android operating system, but I have one, very serious, very important suggestion.

Not to assume I know any way to implement what I'm suggesting, or if it's even possible. Not at all. Nor would I suggest that Android is not the best mobile OS I've ever seen; I would never do such a thing.

In fact, Android is so good, that I'm already planning my next-new phone purchase, and limiting myself only to Androids. I've thoroughly enjoyed the system and will continue to do so.

Finally, before I get to my point, I'd like to say that I know you don't control the app community, you merely facilitate it, which is fine! We appreciate the centralized distribution of apps. It's great in fact, simply wonderful, that even someone programming Java out of their basement can put out something simple and entertaining.

My suggestion is: make application permissions variable. 90% of the time, 90% of permissions are not necessary. Prime example, why does an application like slice it (I've been picking on them) require GPS? If I put my phone into "airplane" mode, I'm sure the app will function just fine, without GPS or network access. Obviously some applications will simply fail if they don't, like Google Maps. This is why I would recommend to give the control back to the users. Rather than have it setup where you either accept whatever permissions they're requesting of you, or don't use the application, you can still install/use an application and deny it access to something like, your phone book, text messaging, phone ID, GPS and network location services, SD Card access, etc.

I don't believe it would be difficult to do, and you could even have it default to whatever permissions the application requests... maybe add a "change allowed permissions" type feature to the bottom of the market page when you go to install a new application.

I think all consumers understand that if you want to do geotagging on your facebook photos, you'll need to give the facebook for android application permission to read GPS, access the internet, and permission to use the camera. I think we get that.

As I'm sure you'll be ignoring our cries again, I'm sure this is all just wasted breath.

Some flexability would be nice though.

Try not to turn into Apple.

Thanks.
Bye.