There’s no shortage of rhetoric being tossed about Google’s way, especially with respect to how dangerous it is, how evil or invasive it may be, how it manipulates the public, and how “destructive” it really is. I’m going to take a somewhat different stance here, not so much in defense of Google, but rather what it is we should really be focused on with regards to “Dangerous Corporations”, especially in 2011.

So Google is dangerous? First of all, how dangerous can it possibly be? Second, how dangerous can it get considering the fact that it doesn’t create anything tangible? Some people who blog or post replies to blogs won’t explain why it’s dangerous, only that it engages in strange and conspicuous business practices, or that it engages in mysterious activities and/or full fledged propaganda. Think so?

The fact is companies come and go, some get absorbed, some get passed by, some have an eminent failure for their business plan, and some can’t see around the next corner. A few grow to immense proportions. And size often causes alarm with some people whether it be Google, Microsoft, General Electric, AT&T, US Steel, The East India Trading Company, Wal Mart, or Nike. Some of that alarm comes with a solid foundation based upon ugly facts especially if a large corporation leaves behind a ghost town in its business wake. But size shouldn’t necessarily draw too much alarm if that corporation doesn’t produce anything tangible even if it has in fact become a Mega-Corporation. Similar to Facebook, you can’t touch what Google primarily does in function. So size isn’t a big issue with me knowing that first, Google might be the clear cut favorite for search engine use right now, but there are still some players out there such as Bing and Yahoo. Second, Google provides a service not a product, and many of the services it does provide are still free. And that’s important. And so long as those services remain free I find it difficult to go off onto any super critical tangent especially when I’m drawing value out of what it provides. The fact is nobody is being forced to use Google. There are alternatives.

If you want to consider danger, then consider this: Exxon/Mobil and British Petroleum are easy to criticize given their history and what it is that they do. And not lost to many people is their advertising machinery, especially evident when they blanket television screens with the soft look of fresh and sometimes young innocent looking faces, endearing spokespersons who tell us about the future, about possibilities, and all the good works that these behemoths are currently tackling in order to help get us there. Some of this is presented to the public like a gentle broad stroke, an easy pat down the back that reassures us about all the hard work that is currently being done in realms of positive green research breakthroughs and new developments. But these things are nothing more than a flimsy shroud despite any advancements being made. The fact is they ravage the planet in the real world of the here and now. Make no mistake, that’s what a propaganda network looks like and it’s very dangerous stuff. It’s also forced upon all of us despite any beliefs or personal opinions any of us have. We have to deal with it on ugly levels and then endure it somehow. I could talk at length about what entities like those really do, about their real impact on earth, sky, and water, and about what their real contribution is to society. How they change the landscape, how they transform government and distort foreign policy. I might be able to talk about them indefinitely, maybe make a career out of it provided I had enough personal energy. That would be almost too easy.

But back to point, unfortunately those are Mega-Corporations that provide products (products that destroy). If someone feels the need to get critical when discussing the implications of size and power then those might be more appropriate places to start, not with an internet giant that concerns itself with how information is gathered, collated, and disseminated. If Google had some weird political platform that it hoisted like a black flag, then it would be time to get worried. So pushing the problem of size aside, right now the water is calm enough for me. And right now they offer free services that I value. I use their search engine frequently. I pull information from it, I apply it to what I’m doing, and occasionally I find new things that I can use and integrate into my site. Sure, I could have used another engine and perhaps retrieved similar looking results, but I didn’t. So on a personal level, and perhaps albeit myopic, Google deserves loads of credit. A positive write up is the only way I know how to repay them.

Daniel A. Pino, author of the new book The Western Arc

The Ugly Truth is I am hooked.

In the active voice, the sentence would be written as: “This book deal piqued my curiosity.” The sentence below is constructed in passive voice, so ideally it should be: “My curiosity was piqued …” However, in the informal context of a blog entry I wouldn’t worry too much about it. It’s common to drop words in a conversational setting, for example, “You got mail” which should really be “You have got mail” (or “You have mail”).

However, I did a google search on “my curiosity piqued” and found that it is used on many occasions as an opening clause, to modify a subject, for example:

My curiosity piqued, I called the FBI employee, a.k.a. “really a spy,� to ask about this apparent breach of basic tradecraft.

Anyway, thanks for the link, Sandhya!