Did You Mean: domination

Is Google the evil, giant corporation some are making it out to be?

Or is Google the fun, playful corporation creating applications that make life better on the internet?

A little of both if you ask me.

Google is easily the most talked about corporation on campus, and in a lot of other places. They are the go-to search engine when you need to find some quick information.

They also make some of the most innovative web-based applications ever seen. I still remember the first time I used Google Maps and saw a satellite image of my house in San Antonio.

It's one of those almost-mind-blowing events. How can they have an actual picture of my house?

Google positioned themselves as the most important company in the Internet. But with that position, comes responsibility (I tried my best to avoid the "With great power comes great responsibility" cliché).

In the Google Documentary, Ian Brown of the Open Rights Group is very skeptical of Google and their motives. While he agrees that they have done some amazing things for the Internet, they have inched closer into becoming a "Big Brother" type of corporation.

One of his fears is that Google is gaining so much access to people's personal information that they run the risk of endangering people's privacy, whether through their own doing or someone else's. And with the recent announcement of Google forming the OpenSocial network, Google stands to gain even more access to people's personal information.

But what would happen if, down the line, this ultimately led to the demise of Google? What if this company became too powerful, and abused that power to the point where it was destroyed?

What if the company that created and owns some of the most used Internet applications was no more?

What would we do?