The Breakup: My Love Affair with Google

It started out innocently enough. I was tired of Yahoo's sad little search engine. It wasn't bringing me what I needed in the relationship, and so I went looking for something else, something more confident, more hip, more streamlined. That's when I found Google. To say it was love at first sight (site?) was putting it lightly. I was hooked.

I signed up for the Gmail beta waaay back in the day. I loved the storage capacity, the design, and the ease of use. When Google came out with Maps, I knew I'd never need MapQuest again. I was already a Blogger user, but when Google took that over, I was elated. "It's going to be so easy.. I just have to log in once and Google will remember everything about me. No more running from page to page, remembering passwords, etc...," I thought.

That is until recently, when Google announced its OpenSource campaign. Basically, Google is combining three Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) that will allow developers to access information based on social networks. This includes:

• Profile Information (user data)
• Friends Information (social graph)
• Activities (things that happen, News Feed type stuff) (source)
  

Now, this bothers me. A lot. Beforehand, I always had the ability to log off of Google. I could step away. I could log into my social networks, and only the people I knew on there would know what I was up to. For example, I know every single one of my friends on Facebook, but would I necessarily want them to know what I'm looking at on the web? More importantly, do I want to be so ingrained that I know what all my friends are looking at? Not really, no.

Google has partnered with social networks Orkut, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Ning, Hi5, Plaxo, Friendster, Viadeo and Oracle and developers Flixster, iLike, RockYou and Slide.

Does all this mean I'm going to stop using Google? No.. we've gone too far at this point. There's too much history, too much at stake. But will I be skeptical, privatize all my information, and fake a headache when Google asks for more? Yes; on more than one night per week.

The honeymoon is over.

Google introduces OpenSocial: