12 May 2008

Thought of the Day - Reliance On Google

I am starting to get a bit worried about how much i rely on Google:

Search - Just about every search i do is through Google, i don't remember the last time i did a search on a competitors site and the only regular time i don't search in Google is when i know what i'm looking for will be in Wikipedia and i start there.
Gmail - for the last 5 years all my personal e-mail has been through Gmail, in one way it is great because i have a great search tool to sift through so much information, in another way Google has a lot of personal information and what happens if i ever lose access to it.
Gchat - Chat from within Gmail with my friends with Gmail accounts.
iGoogle - Customized homepage that aggregates mail notifications, various news sites and various links i use frequently.
Blogger - Hosts this blog.
Google Analytics - Used to track traffic through various websites (including this blog).
Google Checkout - Used instead of paypal on some occasions.

More recently i have started using:
Google Bookmarks - Currently i have dozens of tabs open in 3 Firefox windows, most of which i don't look at on anything approaching a regular basis but don't want to close incase i lose or forget them. I also have various bookmark and favourites lists on different computers none of which are linked. I also have various backups of my bookmarks that never quite made it between computer upgrades.
Google Web History - Cataloguing all of my web viewing activity at home, useful if i forget to bookmark something or wonder how much time i waste online.


So what happens if Google ever; become evil, start charging for some of the products, disappear, are hacked, withdraw certain services etc etc? Frankly i'm kinda screwed. In one way it is great to have everything aggregated in one place, but in terms of risk mitigation it does feel like i have all of my eggs in one basket.

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