The darker side There's another side of Google that's not quite so happy. Daniel Brandt, of San Antonio, is probably the company's most outspoken critic. Some might even accuse him of being a conspiracy theorist, but Brandt said he stands firmly by what he's written on google-watch.org, a site devoted to telling the world what's wrong with Google. The first problem is privacy, imposed by Google's "immortal cookie," which doesn't expire until 2038. A cookie is a small file that a Web site leaves on a user's computer every time that user visits. The Web site can then tell how many times a particular site has been accessed by a particular user. "I don't understand what the big deal is," Bilenko said. "You can just disable cookies if you care that much." Google's new e-mail, Gmail, also infringes on privacy, Brandt said, because Google does not disclose how long e-mail is kept on its server after the messages are deleted. "You don't know if something you deleted is really gone," Brandt said. He worries that if a national intelligence agency subpoenas Google files, the company would hand over files that users thought were deleted a long time ago. And Brandt's not alone in his concerns. "We all have stuff on our laptops that we don't want anyone to see," Janes said. Sometimes it's not simply a question of whether information is purposely gathered. "Whether it's intentionally, or as a side component, gathering information can be potentially harmful," said Piper, the Western Washington librarian. And he may have a more unique concern: Google just released Google Scholar, a search engine specifically focused on finding scholarly articles and research materials. Librarians and information specialists say they worry that people will only use Google instead of supplementing it with other sources. "I'm worried whenever people get bad information instead of good," Janes said. Whether you're looking for some place to eat, researching Herman Melville or writing an e-mail, Google is a source for information. But ultimately, how users manipulate Google is entirely dependent on them. "It's only a slice of a slice of the information world, and, like any tool, it can be used well or badly," Janes said. Other Google Info * Google's original name was BackRub. * Googleduel.com lets two different search terms duel to the death. The site compares the frequency of each word on the Internet. * Major Google operations such as Froogle and Orkut.com, a social networking site, are Google employees' personal projects. * According to Whois.net, there are 43,934,517 registered sites that have Google in the address. * This is what a googol looks like: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000. * Googolplex, which is similar to the name of Google headquarters in Silicon Valley, is the number equal to 10 to the power of googol. * On Nov. 22, Google searched 8,058,044,651 pages. * Google is also a calculator. If you type in a math problem, it will give you the answer. * There are 105 different languages in Google personal preference settings, including Klingon, Pig Latin and Elmer Fudd. * American users cannot always see holiday Google logos if the logos depict a holiday that is country-specific. * Labs.google.com showcases Google projects that are still in the experimental stages.
hey dont forget that google can also calculate currencies! try ' 50 euro in dollars' it will give you the awnser, same for most of the other currencies like pound, yen or w/e its called edit: 50 Euro = 60.64 U.S. dollars lol
I knew most of that already. Google is good, no doubts about it. If you dont like all these little extras, i see no reason why not
