Today I noticed that Marshal Kirkpatrick in a post on Read/WriteWeb made reference to my post on Google that I wrote the other day. At first when I saw him use the word dystopia as part of the description of my post I thought it was a pretty damn cool word but I wasn’t sure if Marshal was being sarcastic or not by calling it the requisite Cory Doctorow reference. I felt; and still do, that it was a prefect illustration of a trend that is developing.

It amazes me that there is such a dichotomy within the technology blogosphere. On one side you have excellent non security company (and this is an important distinction) blogs who believe that no one on the internet is coming to the table with full and honest disclosure. Then on the other side you have the head in the cloud Web 2.0 crowd who appear to believe that everyone in the world is good and believes in the do no evil ethos.

These goodies seem to think that the whole Web 2.0 philosophy will rise above the evilness of Corporation 1.0 and cast it into the shadows. Hate to break it to you folks but this is a war you have lost before you even started.

Ya ya … so Google started in a garage by two supposedly idealistic Stanford grads and for the first while the whole snarky do no evil philosophy might have actually meant something. The moment though that they realized that you can’t pay for a roof over your head, pay for servers or pay for the bandwidth with glib statements of not doing evil Corporation 1.0 got its foothold.

The moment that happened the aspirations of a lily white good Google went out the window and helped grease the slide which saw Google forfeit any righteousness the moment they bowed to Chinese pressure as they moved to enter that country. This is when we truly saw the end of the do no evil  and the rise of its replacement index all the world’s information; and I would add - at any cost, become the boardroom chant echoing throughout he Google ranks.

As Google has risen in power many have begun scrutinizing every move taken by the corporation. Whether it being the on-going purchasing of dark fibre, massive expenditures in their own data centers often under questionable actions of state legislators involved, making moves on both the 700 MHz spectrum here and the 900 MHz spectrum abroad to now a move to lay their own trans-pacific data pipeline.

Vast majority of people seem to be quite happy to funnel their daily lives through Google with no thought or concern about the fact that Google is in one way or another using all that data to fuel its warchest to monopolize the Internet. In fact if Marshal’s attitude of bring it on and give us more of the same is any example Google should have no problem with any of its plans.

Google has taken to heart a simple axiom

Knowledge is power. Information is power.

Every day that goes by we gladly feed this beast and regardless of how the Web 2.0 bunch might gush giddily about freedom, social networks or social graphs we are walking blindly towards a Borg far worse than many have accused Microsoft of being.

As pointed out by Jason at webomatica even on the social network front where Facebook is being proclaimed as the big winner; regardless of the fact that it operates in a fashion that is the total anathema of Web 2.0 philosophy with its closed walls and its own programming language, Google could “.. stage a coup”.

Whether it does immediately or not doesn’t matter because Google operates on the slow drip IV method of absorption. Already it has people like Jason who look upon Google as an integral part of their daily lives

For starters, this Wednesday I came to the realization that I’m constantly checking either GMail or Google Reader, and just out of convenience, also GTalk. It’s becoming the best way to reach me.

So really adding in their social networking feature is just a small step but once more you have become further integrated within the Google ecosphere and further extend their reach into your personal information - your personal life. In return for helping them amass incredible power what are you getting? You’re getting an email client, an RSS reader, a mediocre search engine and a bunch of other tools. All this and a corporation that can probably trace your every action online.

It is no longer a question of if they would do it but when and to what degree. Google like everything else in this world; especially corporations, are motivated by one thing - profit and loss. Minimize the losses and maximize the profits at whatever the cost and do whatever needs to be done to protect itself. That is business 101 and it is the maxim that has guided corporations; and their shareholders, since day one and no amount of Web 2.0 warm and fuzzy social networking is going to change that - it will only make them richer and more powerful especially since we are all handing our information over freely each and every day.

Listening to: Shpongle - Shponglization - 06 - High Pitch

Conversation Tags: Google, social networks, social graphs, do no evil, corporations