14 DAY TRIAL // In the past few days, a new series of leaked letters indicated that the NSA and Google had in fact been collaborating more closely than previously thought.
The letters between Keith Alexander and Google’s execs date back to 2012 and they discuss an invitation extended to the Internet giant to help create a way to protect the industry through a security framework, alongside a bunch of other companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, HP and Dell.
For one reason or another, the fact that the other companies were already working with the NSA was skipped by most, who preferred to target their ire towards Google – the industry’s scapegoat.
Why am I saying this? Well, because if you want to be annoyed with someone for working with the NSA, you might as well just throw Apple and Microsoft in there as well, since they were also on the list of PRISM members, or even Intel, AMD, HP and Dell, since they’re responsible for a good part of the computers you use, whether it’s components or the entire device.
But even so, the finger-pointing is done in the wrong direction. Let’s not forget that until a year ago, when Edward Snowden was bold enough to share his documents with the media, no one even knew that the American intelligence agency was the bad guy.
As a matter of fact, the NSA played a key role in the creation of security standards, the design of specialized communications hardware and software, and even of data encryption standards. Basically, until the whistle was blown by Snowden, what the NSA said was trusted by industry specialists.
RSA, a company that has been under fire for its relationship with the NSA, has mentioned exactly the same thing. Its Executive Chairman, Arthur Coviello, said during a conference that the intelligence agency exploited a position of trust.
Therefore, whether these companies, Google included, worked alongside the NSA in the past can’t really be held against them, especially since the goal of the project was to protect the Internet from the bad guys. Hindsight being 20-20, they probably shouldn’t have trusted an intelligence agency, but that’s water under the bridge now.
Google’s “children”
The trend of blaming Google for one thing or another goes even further. Every few months, Google is accused in another antitrust case, when other companies do the very same thing.
Does Microsoft not set Internet Explorer as the default Internet browser on Windows and Bing as the default search engine? Of course it does, but the company rarely gets pulled into scandals anymore.
And since it’s time for an unpopular opinion – I don’t even think a company such as Google promoting its own products is a bad thing or that outrageous. After all, these are products it spent time building and perfecting over many years.
It’s similar to how parents will favor their own children over those of their neighbors or friends. There’s nothing wrong with it or surprising, as a matter of fact. If you don’t like Chrome on your Android phone, you can download another app, if you don’t want to see Google Maps as the go-to mapping option at the top of the results page, you can scroll a bit further, and if you don’t like Google search, you can certainly choose another search engine as default.
Perhaps even worse is the fact that antitrust investigations are only launched because of jealous competitors that simply want a slice of the pie and are having trouble figuring out how to take it.
I’m not saying that Google should only promote its own products, but nowadays, it’s not exactly difficult to find alternatives if you truly want to. This, of course, is true for other online companies as well, not just for Google.
Terms of Service
Another thing that people have been complaining about with Google is the fact that the company gathers user data and uses it for advertising purposes. First of all, as far as the business model of the company is concerned, Google is a glorified ad seller. That’s the main source of income for the company and it will always be so.
Secondly, let’s all remember that we’re using Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, Drive, Docs, Hangouts and many other services for free. There’s absolutely no charge for these, apart from a few tools where you have the alternative to pay for more storage space or a more specialized service. And while I’m sure few have actually read the Terms of Service, we’re all actually agreeing to the data collection when signing up for any online product.
Someone once said that if you were not paying, you were actually the product. Well, that basically applies here, although it does not mean in any way that if you pay for a service, you’ll get better treatment. It just means that Google has to be able to continue to innovate, to purchase startups with new ideas, to bring new products to the table and to improve and maintain old ones, and it needs funds to do so.
Since we’re not paying for their products, they have to get the money from advertising. In order to make things efficient for advertisers and users, the company is going through the collected data and delivering products that are suited to your tastes and interests.
Once more, this isn’t about Google alone, since the situation applies to a number of other products and services, including those from Yahoo, Facebook, Microsoft and so on.
I don’t want this to sound like I’m defending Google since it has plenty of faults on its own, but perhaps we should all look at the bigger picture and stop targeting the Internet giant just for “breathing.” The situations described above actually apply to a lot of tech companies and everyone needs to remember that if something doesn’t suit us, we can always choose to switch to other services since there are plenty of alternatives out there.