Jessie Lin

Did the privilege of convenience turn into an invasion of privacy?

In John Lee’s blog on “Is Google As Great As People Gather,” people are forced to really think about what they are giving away as they perform a simple “google search” online. Google’s monopoly over the internet search engines has gathered so much power that no matter what surfer people are using, they still refer to the verb google for nearly every moment when a curiosity needs to be fulfilled. The new feature on google allows users to store and centralize their personal information. The question now arise, is this too much? Has Google finally crossed the line?

Privacy issues like this have been popular topics in our society today, with facebook topping it off. What Google and facebook have in common is that they gather information across their services and inform companies what people search for. With that being said, however, many users are also using these systems under the knowledge that their privacy could be invaded. Therefore, the new privacy setting on Google really could not have been developed without the invisible support of the users.

The new search feature on Google has been said to cross the line a little bit, but can the society today really live without this kind of convenience? Did not this kind of specialized feature get developed out of people’s need for constant convenience? Where to draw the line is yet to be determined.