Checking my website logs I came across an interesting stat. One of my visitors was the Googlebot, actually it visits quite frequently, but what made this interesting is what I saw in the log. Not only is it viewing the different pages it’s trying to access Javascript files.
I’m not so sure that I actually like Google trying to access Javascript. Besides the fact that they want to know everything about you it increases server load. Before making a hasty decision about posting this I did a quick reverse DNS lookup and sure enough the IP 66.249.66.1 resolves to “crawl-66-249-66-1.googlebot.com”.
I sometimes wonder about what kind of extent Google goes to in collecting data. I know many people in the technology (especially computer) fields swear by Google. I’ve seen a comment somewhere on a blog post that talked about Google being a benevolent dictator. Now if that’s not an oxymoron! There are enough people that hate Microsoft and what it stands for but is Google really any different.
If you look at all the applications that Google is releasing and how they all interact with each other you start notice many similarities to Microsoft. Only Google is doing it online whereas Microsoft did it with the desktop market.
Don’t get me wrong, for searching I do use Google as my default and usually only use Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN Live or Microsoft Live or something Live) if I can’t find much on Google. They all have different algorithms they use and sometimes one is better than the other. I do believe that Google does in general return decent search results but I don’t agree with some of their other policies.
If you’ve ever wondered how much data Google can collect on a user it’s actually quite amazing. A few months ago I read a blog post over at slightlyshadyseo.com. It has some interesting tidbits of information. Quoted below is a bit of the post.
I’m really beginning to get scared here. Even ignoring Google’s less than benevolent intentions, can anyone imagine a data breach? No company is truly secure. 4 years ago the entire member database of the largest porn network on the planet was available(including passwords) for 1 grand. over 500,000 records. There have been data breaches at pharmaceutical companies, leaking millions customer records, down to the pill they took and when the prescription was up. Government servers get compromised, credit bureaus get compromised. So why would Google be any different?
Head over and read the article and get your take on it. I do think that the amount of data that Google can track is astounding and I do wonder what their intentions are.
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
