A recent analysis valued Facebook at more than $50 billion. The valuation might seem ridiculous until the fact comes out that Facebook has more than 500 million “friends.” Perhaps the friends that Facebook enjoys are more generous than most friends because it seems like each of Mark Zuckerberg’s friends are worth at least $100 to him. If Facebook is worth $50 billion then what is a site that almost everyone on the planet uses worth?
Google’s value is almost immeasurable, especially when compared to the accepted value of Facebook. With a company that valuable and with the combination of technological know-how and access to information, it seems almost inevitable that the company would be accused to abusing its power. Yet Google had remained largely spotless—until recently. Google is now accused of collecting emails and other personal information from unsecured Wi-Fi networks in South Korea. The violations occurred during photograph collections for the Google Street View mapping service.
For a company that once promoted the motto, “Don’t be evil,” Google finds itself in the midst of a major controversy. The search engine powerhouse already announced that it had inadvertently gathered parts of people’s online activities by accident in May 2010. This disclosure caused investigations around the world. Street View provides picture on Google Earth and Google Maps. Google has revealed that e-mails, URLS and passwords were collected by researchers. In South Korea, Google accessed private data as it took pictures in Seoul and other major cities.
Perhaps Google was innocent in collecting its data. Perhaps all of it was taken by accident, but for a company that powerful and rich, the gathering of private information is sensitive at best. Google might be watching the entire world via its applications such as Google Street View, but who or what is watching Google as it compiles information on most of the people in the world?