What’s Google Doing?

Google may be regarded as the “God of the Modern Times” by a lot of people. It knows our most intimate, and sometimes even the silliest thoughts that run through our minds everyday. We ask questions and sometimes even confess things, while raising a query to Google that we won’t even share with our best friend, a family member or even a priest.

Whether it’s searching for ‘’Medicinal weed’’, stalking your ex girlfriend or even asking “if someone pisses you off, is it worth killing them?’’, we confide in Google so much that even Satan would be disturbed by what we search.

There are more than 5.6 billion searches on Google everyday and just about 15% of the searches are questions that have never been asked before. Even to substantiate this fact I had to Google it; simply shows how badly we all are infested by it. During Medieval times, whenever people had some queries, they would go to a Rabbi or a priest, or worship their God, hoping it would solve their problems. But now, millennials want to know about the number of plastic surgeries Kylie Jenner has gotten, and expect Google to come up with the juiciest bits of information about the same.

At the same time, Google may be considered as the Devil by almost any other information technology company that exists. Handling almost 90% of the search engine traffic, Google is simply on the verge of running a monopoly over the market, since it has a policy of acquiring any company which it deems to be a future threat. As a result, Google’s parent company Alphabet, owns 200 companies with a new acquisition every week. Google’s acquisition of Motorola in 2011, is one of the best examples. In 2010, Samsung was making the hottest selling android phones in the market, but soon it started making changes to its software like phone calls, touch interface etc, which were largely filled with virus and bloatware, providing extensive criticism to Google’s UI (User Interface) and it’s Playstore.

Just to get back at Samsung, Google bought Motorola for a whopping $12.5 billion and introduced an entire line of next-gen phones, including the Nexus series, taking over market by storm. Samsung having learnt their lesson, signed a billion-dollar licensing deal with Google to use its software. Then in 2014, Google sold Motorola to Lenovo for $2.91 billion, taking a huge loss but not without making their point. This simply shows how Google exploited a company just for it’s own gain.

Google changed their motto from “Don’t be evil” to “Do the right thing.” But what is the definition of “the right thing” for a company that rules over the world with an iron fist, thanks to our spontaneous searches and a need to be desired by others? In a world where information is everything, and where programs that calculate the certainties of a what an individual may do in the future by looking at their past information exist, how long will it take for it to turn into a sinner, from a saint?