Is Google evil???

So in our last class we got to watch this nice little video:

And it does raise the question? Is Google some evil kind of organisation, trying to come up with a master plan to rule the world?

And some people really believe it to be the case... And go overboard!!!!

But I ask you, what has Google done to you personally?
How has it affected your life?
Do you feel out of control in your life? Like your privacy has been breached and everyone knows everything about you?

I personally love Google.
I remember the days back in school when I had to go through books and books of the Barsa Encyclopedia to look for information to do a paper. What a nightmare that was...

And I remember how excited I got when I had access to Encarta! Remember that?

Now doing research was so much easier and even more fun.

Not to talk about ways of communicating. I lived in China, as some of you may already know, between 1993 and 1997. Keeping in touch with my friends back in Brazil through regular mail was soooooo difficult. But then emails came along. And ICQ!!!! How I loved that chat!!!
And life was so much simpler....

And here we are today.
Anything we want, all we have to do is open the computer and go to Google.
They help you find the information you need for a research, they help you plan your holiday, they help you find your way (I'M THE BIGGEST FAN OF GOOGLE MAPS!!!! Can't live without it anymore!), help you find the pretty pictures I posted above on this post, etc etc etc.
Help you share your pictures, your lives, your stories.
Get real time information about everything, everywhere.

So what if they have my info too?
And so what if they're using it to customise my searches?
Even better! Takes me less time to find what I want!!!!
Today we have an overload of information and access to things. Sometimes looking for something simple on the web takes you ages.
If these guys are coming up with tools to make my life more simple and more practical, than great! I'm all in for that.

And as for privacy????
Well, what is privacy to start with? And people are so fast to jump at this. But has anyone ever really bothered to read the privacy policy of anything?
I looked into Google's. http://www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/
And you know what? Sounds perfectly legit to me!

Plus, how many people are we in the world again? Almost 7 billion right? Why would Google care so much about my info out of these 7 other billion people in the world? I'm just a regular person, with a regular life... What's so interesting about that?
And if that's how they do business, well then so be it.
There are so many other companies manufacturing arms & weapons, polluting the environment, making so much harm to the world. Why are we not bashing them for destroying the planet we are living in?
But instead we're calling evil a company that interferes with our virtual realities....
Are we living in the real world still? Or some kind of Matrix?

And so what if they're monopolistic? Aren't the oil companies a bit like that too?
Have you heard of any wars caused by Google?
How about wars caused by oil?????

And let's be honest with ourselves here. If you really want something private, keep it away from the internet!!!!

Sometimes I think people forget that there is still something called HUMAN INTERACTION!
You wanna tell your friend a secret? Don't email it to them!
Invite them out and tell them in person over a coffee.

THERE IS A LIFE OUTSIDE THE WWW. AWAY FROM EMAILS. AWAY FROM FACEBOOK. AND AWAY FROM MOBILE PHONES!

Don't forget that! :)
That's where you keep what is you feel should be private.

Take advantage of this amazing era of abundance of knowledge and embrace it! It's called progress!
Share with the world what you want to share! And keep your secrets to yourself! In your heart and in your mind.

Don't be a hypocrite! Go back to the beginning of this post and check how these people that are so strongly bashing Google doing so.... through the very tools they criticise.... huh?

And I leave you with this last video I saw which cracked me up!!!
Till next time! :-P

Back in business... sort of!

So as you can see and also based on my last post, this blog got slightly lost and forgotten over the past few months.
But now it's time to get it going again.

Many things have changed since I last posted. Key thing is I stopped travelling. :(

Though I miss it a lot, it's nice to be settled down a bit again. But I'm not back home, nor back where I used to live. I'm in Madrid. And I'm back to school!!!!

Every now and then I still can't believe after this many years I'd be back in a school like environment. Even though it's an MBA, sometimes it feels like high school all over again. And it's tougher than I imagined being back.
I can handle mean bosses, loads of work and responsibilities... But I'm struggling to deal with the lectures and homeworks. And tests and exams! And some of the teachers.... aarrrggghhh!!!!

Anyways, life's quite different. But very exciting.
And you might be thinking how come she will revive this blog now, when she barely has any spare time with all of the studying and assignements and so forth...
Well, I'll tell you.
I need to do a blog to post assignments for one of my classes! hahaha
So I thought this one would perfectly do the trick.

But I guess I'm gonna have to change the title again.
Still thinking about it....

In the meantime, please note that you may start seeing posts you wouldn't expect to see coming from me. When you read those, now you'll know that's me doing my homework!!!!