Google Is Creeping Toward Evil
I just bought a Motorola Droid, which features the Android operating system, written by Google. The phone is good. I like it, I don’t love it.
Its main shortcoming is that it’s annoyingly branded with Google. They make it really easy to set up Google Mail, but really hard to set up Yahoo mail, or a 3rd party POP3 mail, for example.
There’s no way to change your search engine. When you go into settings, you expect to see a setting for “who do you want your search provider to be?” but instead you see “how would you like Google to be your search engine.”
Now, Google just bought MobAd, a mobile advertising partner. Couple that with them giving away a free OS which locks you into their search engine, and Google is creeping toward evil. The evil part is their posturing as a benefactor with their free and open source operating system while quietly removing your choices for who you want your search provider to be.
You may also be reading about how Google is swapping your phone number for it’s Google Voice phone number without your permission. More on that in another post.
Google is the new RJ Reynolds.