Can Google and Microsoft ever walk hand-in-hand?

UMEROUS notes have accumulated on my Palm, so I decided to publish them in a logical (not necessarily chronological) order. The notes are all associated with questionable practices and controversial moves, which have been embraced by the Internet’s largest forces, putting Yahoo aside for the most past.

We all wish to gaze into the crystal ball and see what Google comes up with. Moreover, Google remain the centre of attention to many of the media sources. This happened for a reason. Public opinion is rather negative when it comes to Microsoft, primarily due to their shady past and unethical paths, which involve misuse of their monopoly in desktop computing, including a customer lock-in strategy. Then come Google, which seem like a Luddite to Microsoft who perceive Google as their giant threat. Many eyes look at up Google as if it was the knight on the white horse — the one to save the world from a vicious ruler.

The reasons to dislike Microsoft do not only involve exploitation of their monopoly-like state-of-affairs. Microsoft’s CEO once made some derogatory statements about competing operating systems. In reference to Linux he once said “are you going to trust some guy from China?”. It is not just midleading, but also racist and disrespectful. It also comes to show lack of sportsmanship in this competition over the operating systems market. Steve Ballmer of Microsoft used similar types of FUD in reference to Google, saying it would disappear within 5 years. That was a couple of years ago and, ever since, Microsoft have only played catch-up on the Internet, merely copying everything from Google. If controversies ever arises (as in the case of book scanning), the will stipulates that Microsoft will embroil their counterparts into the very same mess, detracting them from victory. Aggressiveness and deep pockets remain in Microsoft’s valued arsenal.

Apart from Trojans, spyware and viruses, I see no real motion in Microsoft Windows. Neither do most existing Windows user, who begin to glance elsewhere. Even when properly protected, the platform has many critical flaws and suffers from the saturation of nagware (homonym of nagger), which we also know as shareware or freeware. Any alternative can be rather pricy. To make matters worse, large quantities (intentional storage room vocabulary) of computers are made captureable from afar. Zombie networks (or BotNets) are constantly being formed. Suddenly, a seemingly harmless and innocent existence of an O/S — one with hijacking vulnerabilities and viral complications — can attack and bring down large Web sites. The flaws are simply infectious. They hurt the entire Web, which is unacceptable.

Finally we can digress to the issue of privacy and censorship. All parties can be blamed and criticised; not only the 3 major search engines, but also AOL, who have willfully handed over logs to the US Government. With regards to censorship in China, it seems as though Google should stop employing engineers. They need diplomats to negotiate SERP‘s, not even relying on algorithms. It seems as though search engine positions are up for sale, so the less gifted are entangled in a circular monetary trap.

In reference to some recent news, cooperation between companies and the government is yet another pressing issue. Some stories were very damaging to the image of trust with the client — the Web user. I am specifically referring to transport of sensitive information; like Yahoo giving the Chinese Internet cops some key information, which was needed to catpture opposition to a dictatorship. Google get hold of plenty of information too, but fortunately they oppose to collaborate with the US Government too easily. They said no to the US Government, but not to the Chinese, ironically enough.

Lastly, Web services are a sensitive type of business, which often centralises addresses, phone numbers and passwords. These are people’s ‘locket information’. In Yahoo, for instance, this includes people’s financial information and stock portfolio too, which could help fraudulent people conduct inside-trading and mass-analyse trends to snatch public money.

In summary, be extremely careful. Know what data remains private. Know the extent to which you are exposed to men in suit that govern your Nation.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 1:56 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.