Google: Good or Bad?

What time is it?

Will it rain later?

What’s the nearest post office?

These used to be questions that we asked friends, something that we might put to a stranger to make conversation. Necessary information that we no longer need to wish for. The answer is only a few clicks away on any phone or laptop.

Now, these three questions are some of the popular questions typed into Google.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google, but that’s just the boring part. It comes up when you Google ‘Google’ (an experience that is strangely meta). In 1996, an innocent technological time, Google was named BackRub and was an embellishment to the domain of Stanford University.

Now Google is…well, Google. We all know its name, we use it every day. We turn to Google not only to find a takeaway near us or to check the spelling of the word ‘quinoa’, but we turn to it to find love, to reconnect with old friends, to research our next holiday destination, to begin a new career.

So, Google. A force for good, right?

We all have a Google spyware story. The time when we were just typing in a question about health tea only to have a Slim Tea ad pop up next time we browse on a completely unrelated website, all hosted by Google.

Or the time we told our friends how much we loved a song to have it start playing next time we asked our Google Assistant to play us a song.

We all low-key know that Google might be spying on our conversations, but of course, everything is really- depending on what expert you’re listening to.

What about the fact that Larry Page and Sergey Brin are part of the highly unethical ‘one dollar billionaire’ club who work for a ‘one dollar’ salary whilst still raking in all the profits from their company and using the technicality to avoid tax? Kind of puts a bitter taste in the mouth.

Google recently celebrated their twentieth birthday with a loveable Google Doodle, another way that they whimsically relate to historical events, seasonal equinoxes and Earth Day.

In many ways, Google is successful because they’ve crafted a personality rather than a business. Because we are willing to forgive flaws in people, does giving a business an almost human persona give us the ability to overlook shady behaviour?

So, Google. On the one hand, a helper, a friend, an indentured servant to out questions about calories in white bread. On the other, a spy, a manipulator run by tax-dodging rich people.

Tweet us @thecreationlab and tell us. Google: good or bad?