Un-Google Your Life

Google has taken over the web in a very respectable way.  They achieved it by doing one thing well and then adding more services over time.  That is a fantastic business model for anyone to follow, but you can do one thing well and still be immoral and abusive.  I mean, Rome did crucifixions well and I don’t admire them for it.

So what’s wrong with Google?  ABC News reported in an article titled Google, CIA Invest in ‘Future’ of Web Monitoring:

It’s not the very first time Google has done business with America’s spy agencies. Long before it reportedly enlisted the help of the National Security Agency to secure its networks, Google sold equipment to the secret signals-intelligence group. In-Q-Tel backed the mapping firm Keyhole, which was bought by Google in 2004 — and then became the backbone for Google Earth.

Yes, Google works with America’s “spy agencies”.  That means that the data you type in to a search, or an email you receive, is subject itself to be searched by any spy agency.  CIA-Director General Michael Hayden said:

[…] there’s a real satisfaction in solving a problem or answering a tough question with information that someone was dumb enough to leave out in the open.

“Dumb enough to leave it out in the open”?  Are you dumb enough to leave your data out in the open?  Of course, it doesn’t begin and end with Google.  This goes to Facebook, as well.  See the article CIA Gets In Your Face(book).

In general, many people don’t like the idea of their moves being recorded and indexed by the world’s information searching gurus for later analysis by the government.  Remember our country’s constitution that doesn’t allow unreasonable searches and seizures?  That wasn’t to protect the guilty people, it was to keep the innocent people from being wrongfully accused and also to keep the government from feeling free to stick its nose everywhere.  A snooping government does not co-exist with free people a free society.  Whether Google was hijacked by the government or the government funded Google, at this point makes no difference.  The fact is that when you “talk” to or through Google, you are talking to the CIA.

Solution

So, there are answers.  You certainly can un-Google your life, as I am currently doing.  There will be more posts coming shortly as I describe how I am currently removing myself from Google’s teat and trying to restore privacy to my online life.