I realize I’ve not kept up with this blog as well as I should, but the good news is, there are more and more stories revealing the truth about Google every single day. I think we are now past the tipping point and it’s only a matter of time before the facade comes crumbling down around that colorful innocent looking logo.

Anyway, I just wanted to pass along the most recent coverage of Google. Privacy International, a privacy watchdog group ranked Google dead last in their most recent study. While I hardly find that shocking, here’s an excerpt of their report.

In summary, Google’s specific privacy failures include, but are by no means limited to:

* Google account holders that regularly use even a few of Google’s services must accept that the company retains a large quantity of information about that user, often for an unstated or indefinite length of time, without clear limitation on subsequent use or disclosure, and without an opportunity to delete or withdraw personal data even if the user wishes to terminate the service.
* Google maintains records of all search strings and the associated IP-addresses and time stamps for at least 18 to 24 months and does not provide users with an expungement option. While it is true that many US based companies have not yet established a time frame for retention, there is a prevailing view amongst privacy experts that 18 to 24 months is unacceptable, and possibly unlawful in many parts of the world.
* Google has access to additional personal information, including hobbies, employment, address, and phone number, contained within user profiles in Orkut. Google often maintains these records even after a user has deleted his profile or removed information from Orkut.
* Google collects all search results entered through Google Toolbar and identifies all Google Toolbar users with a unique cookie that allows Google to track the user’s web movement.17 Google does not indicate how long the information collected through Google Toolbar is retained, nor does it offer users a data expungement option in connection with the service.
* Google fails to follow generally accepted privacy practices such as the OECD Privacy Guidelines and elements of EU data protection law. As detailed in the EPIC complaint, Google also fails to adopted additional privacy provisions with respect to specific Google services.
* Google logs search queries in a manner that makes them personally identifiable but fails to provide users with the ability to edit or otherwise expunge records of their previous searches.
* Google fails to give users access to log information generated through their interaction with Google Maps, Google Video, Google Talk, Google Reader, Blogger and other services.

As expected Google’s responded with their typical FUD tactics, generating a smear campaign against the organization. But of course, being readers of this site, I’m sure you can figure out the truth for yourself.

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When you own an anti-Google site and Google makes a few very large and very evil moves, you can’t exactly sit back and NOT mention it. Even if you are busy working on your house among several other projects. So, here I am. Better late than never right? Anyway…

Unless you’ve had your head in the sand (or perhaps up Google’s collective hind-parts), you’ve surely realized Matt Butts’ Cutts’ recent posts on paid links were basically a declaration of war on paid links. Either you tell Google to devalue said links or else… Or else what we haven’t been told but Google (via Butts) has made it clear that they are taking large strides towards combating the practice of buying and selling links without use of the nofollow tag (which of course was just SUPPOSED to combat blog spam). While much has been written about this topic, by people far more intelligent and informed than I, I’d like to sum up Google’s motives.

First, they can’t identify paid links on their own. They’ve got untold numbers of well educated engineers and yet they haven’t been able to reliably distinguish paid links from real links. Unfortunately, they also know that thousands of webmasters hang on their every word and with just a few quick blog posts, they’ve stirred up enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) to get them no doubt tens of thousands of “spam” reports on paid links. Sure lots of innocent sites will no doubt be reported and possibly suffer from Google’s efforts to algorithmically identify paid links, and sure the people spending the most buying their way to the top of Google’s SERPs will continue to go unnoticed, but what do they care? Thanks to the brown-nosing Cuttlets that mindlessly do whatever their told, Google will have enough paid link reports to keep their engineers busy for the next 5 years.

Second, they are trying to make it impossible for sites to buy rankings unless of course… and stay with me cause this is the big one… they buy them from Google. You see, in actuality, Google has no problem with people buying their way to the top of their rankings. In fact, they make it really easy to do so. The catch is, Google forces you to pay a king’s ransom. Despite the constant stream of BS that flows from Google’s mouth pieces, they don’t actually care about delivering the most relevant results and they could care less about the users’ experience. You see, if they REALLY cared about those things, they wouldn’t place paid listings (ads) on top of their organic (unpaid) search result pages (SERPs). If they REALLY cared about relevancy, they wouldn’t simply charge advertisers more for terms they have a poor quality score for. They wouldn’t allow such ads to be placed. Of course, they DON’T really care about relevancy or their users. After dismissing Gevil’s er sorry (I’ve really got to get this keyboard looked at) Google’s reasons you’re left with the simple fact that Google is trying to force more advertisers and webmasters to use their AdWords/AdSense systems.

That’s it, plain and simple. There’s no higher calling and Google’s not striving to improve anything other than their bottom line. Google is once again F’ing* over webmasters under the guise of relevancy and improved usability. In the end, the only “search” Google has mastered is the search for the almighty dollar.

*FUDding of course… get your mind out of the gutter…

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If/When this happens, please don’t say I didn’t warn you.

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As if Google didn’t have enough problems, their newest billion dollar acquisition has been taking fire like it’s in the “Green Zone.” First, the media giant, Viacom, forced YouTube to pull hundreds of thousands of videos that were allegedly infringing upon their copyrights. Then, details emerged that proved YouTube ended up throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water by taking down an unknown number of legitimate videos along with the copyrighted clips. But hey, that’s no big deal right? I mean Google’s never had a problem participating in a bit of censorship in the past, right?

In the spirit of piling on, NBC took their turn kicking Google/YouTube while they’re down. Chief executive Jeff Zuker blasted the search-owned video-site saying “YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It’s proven it can do it when it wants to. They have the capability. The question is whether they have the will.”

While I’m not saying that YouTube will be “Napsterized”, it’s certainly going to be interesting to watch what happens in the coming months and you can be sure Gevil.org will keep you up to date on it all.

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A box with words or pictures in it.

ThatÂ’’s what Google doesnÂ’’t want to see itÂ’s publishers using on their sites.

Unless itÂ’s GoogleÂ’s box… with GoogleÂ’s words… or GoogleÂ’s pictures.
Recently, Brian Axe from GoogleÂ’s AdSense team had an interview with Shoemoney about various AdSense topics, most of which centered on the current version of rules. Brian claimed that Google was actually loosening rules, allowing publishers to place contextual advertising on any page on your site, even the same page as Google ads, so long as they donÂ’t look like Google AdWords ads. If they do, you canÂ’t have them anywhere on your site, or youÂ’re in jeopardy of being banned from their program. I heard once that Donald Trump sued a guy because he had a store that sold playing cards and poker chips and card tables, and was called “Trump Card”. The Donald didnÂ’t think the guy should be able to use the word “trump” in that manner. I wonder if he can retroactively sue every inventor of every card game that includes trump cards? Insane, isnÂ’’t it?

It’s a lot like thinking you hold eminent domain over words in a box. Not special Google-sized boxes, but IAB standard boxes. With words. YÂ’know, like what youÂ’re reading right now. I have to assume this also means image ads. IÂ’m sure everyone can agree that pictures used in advertising is something that Google likely pioneered, and should rightly discriminate against any publishers who flaunt that rule. Brian asserted that Google does not intend to hinder competition or act in a way that would be harmful to itÂ’s publishers; that would be bordering on antitrust violations*. ItÂ’s because the AdSense team believes they have established a brand identity. Brand identity? Using IAB, worldwide standard box sizes and words? With the full range of the (as yet) free color spectrum?

Thank God four wheels, a box, and an engine weren’t considered a brand identity when Henry Ford was building his assembly line. Otherwise, a company like Tesla Motors would never be able to take their magneto/electrico pipe dreams beyond the drawing board.

This is my first salvo…

More to follow.

* I added the antitrust part. I’m sure they’ve been instructed to never, ever use that word in any communications outside the ‘plex.

Editor’s Note: I’d like to thank Robert Paulson for contributing to Gevil.org. I look forward to reading rest of your shot’s across Google’s bow. Also, as a quick reminder, if YOU would like to contribute to Gevil.org, please let me know via email at info[at]gevil.org. Thanks! 

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A recent court case in Germany has apparently helped a few more people see the light about the true nature of the search giant.

“The woes don’t end there. Across western Europe, a quiet battle rages on between Google and Daniel Giersch, a German-born venture capitalist who insists he’ll never relinquish his 6-year-old trademark registration of “G-mail…und die Post geht richtig ab” (translation: G-mail…and the mail goes right off).

“Google’s behavior is very threatening, very aggressive and very unfaithful, and to me, it’s very evil,” he said in a recent telephone interview with CNET News.com from his part-time Los Angeles home.” (read the full article at CNET News)

Giersch apparently plans to follow up his victory in Germany with cases in Switzerland, Norway, and perhaps even in the U.S. If this story reminds you of the many different court cases filed against Microsoft in the 1990’s, it should. As I’ve said many times before, Google has become the tyrannical monster they fought so hard against in their infancy and it appears more and more people are willing to stand up to them.
Mr. Giersch, Gevil.org salutes you.

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Yesterday we showed you a glimpse into the future of Google. The only problem is I don’t really see us using search, or computers for that matter, the same way 75+ years down the road. This video on the other hand… this could happen. Of course we’d never know what percentage we’d be getting nor would we require any oversight or bother to place any checks on the massive amounts of power we’re placing in the hands of a single corporation…. bah, just check out the video.

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A family member (who we’ll call Bob) sent an email to my wife on the subject of Health. It was one-link to a nutrition-site product (sunflower oil and other vitamins). My wife uses Gmail for all her email needs. Bob uses Yahoo for his needs.

The email contained a single link with no other information and not even a signature. The one-link email was flanked on its right side with sponsored links from Google. Ok, this is normal.

What was not normal, and was terrifying was that the ads where for Illuminati, deep secret governments, and a whole host of underground conspiracy ads. My wife was puzzled by the ads because they had nothing to do with nutrition. She knows how the ads should work because she has an Adsense account.

Our curiosity of the misinformed ads grew quickly.

For the heck of it we decided to call Bob and ask him if he was into these types of websites? He said, “That’s where I mostly visit. And how would we know this intimate information?”

We explained; Google reads email content with electronic robots and delivers ads based on ‘The Emails’ content. So if your email is about cats, ads should appear on the subject of cats. Google has always claimed it does not track content of users email. It simply provides content-based ads.

This came as a shock to Bob! He said he spends his life investigating threats to the U.S. constitution and expects that to remain ‘private’ to his household.

With that, we all felt a chill down our spine. How is it that emails from Bob now reveal where he surfs to his recipients?

This is no mistake on Google’s part. They are beginning to profile its users through toolbars, email content, collaboration with Yahoo databases and where we visit frequently. Then targeting our associates to see if they too are interested in the same subject matter? Or is that all its for?

I have never been into conspiracy before, but this smells rotten. We have clear evidence that Google and Yahoo somehow track our behavior “Personally!”

Look at the facts:

1) Bob only uses Yahoo for all his needs. This includes email, surfing and purchases.
2) My wife received the email from Bob in her Gmail account.
3) Yahoo and Google are two separate company’s right?
4) Bob has never revealed to my wife his personal Internet life.
5) Ads about where Bob visits frequently appear where content ads should have under Google sponsored section in Gmail email.
6) Bob confirmed that these are the primary sites he visits.
7) Gmail ads should only be focused on email content.

It is becoming ever clearer to me that we are heading towards George Orwell’s 1984. By the way, I can thank Google for those conspiracy ads, which lead me to this book. What a freekin’ irony!

Google is becoming the threat that so many predicted. I guess I am just starting to wake up.

~ BigD of reflexologynation.com

Editor’s Note: From time to time we will be featuring guest commentary here on Gevil.org. I’d like to thank BigD for being the first such post. If you’d like to contribute to Gevil.org, contact us at info[at]gevil.org. Thanks!

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Behold, the Gevil… dangit, I mean Google of the future:

And, just so you don’t think I came up with this on my own, let me tell you that this image is from the New York Times. So, if I’m crazy for thinking Google is less than the sparkling example of what a “good” corporation can be, at least I’m keeping company with some pretty credible sources.

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That’s right ladies and gent’s you can now show your support for Gevil.org is several different (and fashionable) ways! Be sure to drop by Gevil.org’s Official Store or check out the other ways to help Gevil.org in our Help Out page. And, as always, if you have any suggestions for the site, a future post, or if you’d like to see more Gevil.org products, drop us a line or leave your suggestion in the comments and we’ll try to oblige.

Thanks, and happy shopping!

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