What if Google were evil?

Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches… What if it controlled your life, asks Cory Doctorow? Scary thought! Radar Magazine published this fictional story which sent chills up and down my spine.

I know it’s fiction but in the current new world order, what will it take for it to become all too real? I love technology and Google has opened up a whole new world of possibilities making search so easy, making collaborative work so simple, but with paranoia creeping into most governments and autocratic leaders becoming the norm in the greatest of so-called democracies, I begin to fear that what I do online may not only affect my freedom and my privacy but may get me into a lot of unforeseeable trouble.

As we agitate for the redrafting of the E-Crime Bill 2007, so that the necessary safeguards can be built in, and clarity brought into this legislation to avoid misuse, this article brings home the dangers that could lurk round the corner. Of course Google isn’t really evil so maybe there is nothing to fear after all.