Google runs some of the most mature and sophisticated web applications currently available and their development has given back excellent technology to the wider development community. It would seem, as a technology company, Google is more than willing to share the very things that many technology companies consider their core business. That’s because, for Google, technology is only a platform for aggregating data and extrapolating relationships. The value is in the rich data analysis layer that exists beneath all of Googles products. Many people are up in arms about the ownership clauses that grant Google a perpetual licence to anything users create through the browser, but the real cause of that clause is so that Google can use all of the tools people use to harvest any data they can about individuals.

Using statistical, linguistic and contextual analysis they learn about how you live, what you do and most importantly what you are going to do. This intelligence can track your searches, your purchases, your responsiveness to advertisement, the news you read, the places you go and anything available about you on the internet. Now add to that the documents you write, the emails you send, the pages you surf to, the posts you make, the forms you submit, any feed or service you use and almost every piece of text you type.

Through the desire to learn about a user for perfectly legitimate purposes, a well of information has been created which constitutes a pervasive invasion of privacy. With a pool of information like that, it’s only a matter of time before its application moves beyond predictive contextual advertising to more invasive applications.

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