Is it the time to leave Google? | by Aritra Adhurjya

GOOGLE. This 6-lettered word isn't just another brand today. From being the go-to website to check your internet connection, to being the search giant that is basically driving this whole generation, this Alphabet owned company really has everything under its control. But it's high time to scrutinize it closely.

Introduction

Google is one of the biggest companies of this decade and has almost all of the market share in the search engine, browser, and smartphone operating system market. Most of the company’s operations are either free or open-source, so how does the company make money? The answer is through a platform called Google AdWord and AdSense, which are basically advertisement services integrated into each and every google product and these are used to collect data and push tailored advertisements to users. But till now Google search results had a clear distinction for a sponsored search result and a legit result.

But recently Google changed the way ads appear in its search result, and for any other layman it looks exactly similar to a regular search result and thus it has become more certain that people will click on the advertisement unknowingly. But you may ask what’s the problem here?

Honestly, initially it may not seem to be that big of a problem, but let's dig deep into it and explore the bigger picture.

Google is known for its advanced software equipment and development in Artificial Intelligence. It is now using the AI to collect user’s data from various sources like search results, location history, payment activities, browsing habits, etc.

As said earlier it's hidden in plain sight but just imagine right now as you are reading this blog some AI is assessing your browsing history and would later evaluate this data and sell it to a big firm on other parts of the world who will then push you tailored advertisement. Doesn’t it sound creepy and scary?

What if this continues?

Imagine you are in the next decade, the whole world is now united by the digital governance of one unified Operating System implemented on each and every device around you and all of them are connected to a single data collection point. All this Big Data combined with advance Machine Learning creates a digital profile of you over the internet and all your behavior and actions get stored under that.

You are now judged from your Internet Profile. Court judgments, police report and tax assessment all are synced to it. Now the government can watch and monitor every action of yours, but can you trust your government with all your personal data? It could be in the future, insurance companies will have a report of yours even before you apply to them, doctors can tell whether to treat your cancer or not and so on. Companies will reject your recruitment form before your interview, which in other terms means, “Congratulations, you have been pre-rejected for your application!”.

You are now less valuable than the data you produce.

What can be done?

One can say that, this was a bit too much and honestly speaking our future won’t be that scary this soon. But for now, you can build a workaround for yourself to protect at least some of your data from going into the hands of Google.

With the increased usage of google services in all levels of our life it's not that easy to just cut it off from our lives but let’s get there step by step.

Let’s start with the browser, we all use Chrome for browsing and it’s the source for google to collect all browsing data. Best suggestion would be to change your browser and now since there are a lot of good options available so why not.

Microsoft’s new Edge is the immediate best alternative to chrome and you can also try the Open Source and Ad Blocker equipped Brave browser.

For search engines you can use the secure DuckDuckGo but if you still use Google search use it in incognito mode.

If possible, try to flash a non-GApps based Custom Rom on your mobile phones. Or if you don’t have any idea about bootloader unlocking, then the easy way is to not log in to your Google account, use F-Droid instead of PlayStore, use your browser for YouTube, Mail, and Maps and use Micro-G for apps that need Google Play Services.

And it's needless to say don’t use Google Assistant.

Conclusion

Net Neutrality is a hot topic nowadays but can you really be ensured that you have complete freedom on your personal life and no one is watching you or even worse, tracking you, be it for harmless reasons? Although all this personal data that Google collects is meant to make its services better for every individual but the question is if you would prefer better efficient search results at the cost of your privacy.

Well that was too harsh on Google here, but we should also be thankful to it for the Internet revolution around us. It's too early to get scared of the distant future and Google isn’t that big of a threat to our personal lives “yet”. We have total freedom on our personal life but all we have to do is to stay a bit precautious to maintain this freedom intact.