Criticism of Google

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Google has received criticism for various issues.

Contents

[edit] Copyright issues

Organizations have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyrighted material on other sites.[1][2] Google typically handles this by removing the link as requested and including a link to the complaint in the search results.[2]

There have also been complaints that Google's Web cache feature violates copyright.[3] However, Google provides mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled. Google also honors the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.[4][5]

On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Google states that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books.[6] The publicized contract between Google and the University of Michigan makes it clear that Google will provide only excerpts of copyright text in a search. The contract says that it will comply with "fair use", an exemption in copyright law that allows people to reproduce portions of text of copyrighted material for research purposes.

[edit] Privacy

[edit] North America

Critics[who?] have pointed out the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally-located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users' searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government. In early 2005, the United States Department of Justice filed a motion in federal court to force Google to comply with a subpoena for, "the text of each search string entered onto Google's search engine over a one-week period (absent any information identifying the person who entered such query)."[7] Google fought the subpoena, due to concerns about users' privacy.[8] In March 2006, the court ruled partially in Google's favor, recognizing the privacy implications of turning over search terms and refusing to grant access.[9]

Some users[who?] believe the processing of email message content by Google's Gmail service goes beyond proper use. Google claims that mail sent to or from Gmail is never read by a human being beyond the account holder, and is only used to improve relevance of advertisements.[10] Other popular email services such as Hotmail also scan incoming email to try to determine whether it is unsolicited spam email (which Gmail also does), but do not scan emails to improve relevancy of advertisements.[citation needed]

Google's online map service, "Street View" has been accused[who?] of taking pictures and coming too close inside people's private homes and/or people who walk down the street not knowing they are being watched on Google's service.

In its 2007 Consulation Report, Privacy International ranked Google as "Hostile to Privacy", its lowest rating on their report, making Google the only company in the list to achieve that ranking.[11]

[edit] European Union

European Union (EU) data protection officials (the Article 29 working party who advise the EU on privacy policy) have written to Google asking the company to justify its policy of keeping information on individuals’ internet searches for up to two years. The letter questioned whether Google has “fulfilled all the necessary requirements” on the EU laws concerning data protection.[12] The probe by the EU into the data protection issue, as of 24 May, 2007 is continuing. On 1 June Google admitted its privacy policy is vague, and that they are constantly working at making it clearer to users.[13]

[edit] Norway

The Data Inspectorate of Norway (Norway is not a member of the EU) has investigated Google (and others) and has stated that the 18- to 24-month period for retaining data proposed by Google was too long.[14]

[edit] PageRank

Google's PageRank algorithm has also been criticized[who?]. Common arguments are that the system is unfairly biased towards large web sites thus entrenching systemic bias, and that the criteria for a page's importance are not subject to peer review. PageRank is a largely automated system, making it impartial and without personal bias. However, Google's system also relies on a certain degree of human oversight (for example, human evaluation of PageRank known as Rater Hub Google). Furthermore, the deletion of critical sites from Google results (for example, sites critical of Scientology[15]) is decided by individual human beings[citation needed] according to company policy for dealing with legal complaints. It remains unclear whether any process could assert the importance of a page in a way that would draw less criticism than the current PageRank system.

[edit] Search within search

For some search results, Google provides a secondary search box within search page that enables the user to find what they are looking for within a particular website. This idea originated from the way users were searching. According to software engineer Ben Lee and Product Manager Jack Menzel, “teleporting” on the web is what helps Google users to complete their search. Google took this concept a step further and instead of just “teleporting”, which means users need only to type part of the name of a website into Google (no need to remember the entire URL) in order to find the correct site, users could type in keywords to search within the website of their choice.[16] It appeared that users were often not finding exactly what they needed while trying to explore within a company site.

Although this is an innovative search tool for users, it sparked some controversy among some online publishers and retailers. Google SERPs display PPC ads from rival companies, which sell ads against brands.[17] “While the service could help increase traffic, some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads, typically to competing companies.”[18] In order to combat this controversy, Google has offered to turn off this feature for those companies who request to have it removed.[18]

[edit] Digital rights management

Announced on January 6, 2006 at the CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Google Video store began selling copyrighted content at the Google Video website. Initially, this service was restricted to the United States and certain other countries. To protect copyright of some video programming, Google created a Google DRM (Digital Rights Management) lock for certain paid content, which caused concern regarding user privacy.[who?]

On 2007-08-15 Google discontinued its DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. Videos which had been previously purchased under that program, as a result of the embedded DRM licenses being revoked, are no longer viewable despite being purchased for ownership; however, a credit to a user's Google Checkout account is available.[19][20]

[edit] Energy consumption

Google has been criticized for the high amount of energy necessary to maintain its servers.[21] Google has pledged to spend millions of dollars on investigating cheap, clean, renewable energy, and has installed solar panels on the roofs at its Mountain View facilities. [22][23]

[edit] Doodles

Google was criticized in 2007 for not featuring versions of the Google logo for American patriotic holidays such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day.[24] That year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day.[25]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Technology News: News: Google Pulls P2P Links Over Kazaa Copyright Claims
  2. ^ a b New Economy; A copyright dispute with the Church of Scientology is forcing Google to do some creative linking. - New York Times
  3. ^ Google cache raises copyright concerns - CNET News.com
  4. ^ Case No. CV-S-04-0413-RCJ-LRL. United States District Court (District of Nevada]]. Filed on January 19, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006.
  5. ^ Case No. 04-CV-3918. United States District Court (Eastern District of Pennsylvania]]. March 10, 2006. Retrieved on July 7, 2006.
  6. ^ Martin, China (2007-11-26). Google hit with second lawsuit over Library project. InfoWorld.
  7. ^ "ACLU v. Alberto R. Gonzales." United States District Court (Northern District of California). August 25, 2005. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.
  8. ^ Wong, Nicole. "Response to the DOJ Motion." Google. [[{February 17]], 2006. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.
  9. ^ Broache, Anne. "Judge: Google must give feds limited access to records." CNET. March 17, 2006. Retrieved on April 13, 2007.
  10. ^ Google Privacy Center - Privacy Policy
  11. ^ Privacy International 2007 Consulation Report
  12. ^ "EU probes Google grip on data" (Accessed 26-May-2007) [1]
  13. ^ "Google admits privacy policy is vague with EU Probe looming" (Accessed 01-June-2007) [2]
  14. ^ "Google Data on Users May Break EU Law, Watchdog Says" (Accessed 26-May-2007) [3]
  15. ^ McCullagh, Declan (2002-02-21). Google Yanks Anti-Church Sites. Wired. Retrieved on 2007-04-16.
  16. ^ Regan, Keith. ""Google's Search-Within-Search Draws Scutiny"", E-Commerce Times, 2008-03-24. 
  17. ^ Stamoulis, Nick. ""Why Companies Are Upset With Google's Search-Within-Search"", Search Engine Optimization Journal, 2008-24-03. 
  18. ^ a b Tedeschi, Bob. "A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites", New York Times, 2008-03-24. 
  19. ^ Cory Doctorow, "Google Video robs customers of the videos they "own"." boingboing.net 2007-08-10.
  20. ^ John C. Dvorak, "Google Pulls Plug, Everyone Misses Point". PC Magazine (online). 2007-08-14.
  21. ^ Keyword: Evil Harpers Magazine, March 2008
  22. ^ Google to enter clean-energy business CNET News, November 2007
  23. ^ Google’s Next Frontier: Renewable Energy New York Times, November 2007
  24. ^ Tweaks send Google critics into orbit - Los Angeles Times
  25. ^ More Google: Holiday Logos

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