I use google everyday. That is not to say that I am not afraid of them. Or maybe not afraid. Let's just say, not entirely ignorant of the fact that they do have access to lots and lots of information about lots of people.

Maybe someone should create a "The big google alternative services thread - How to truly stay anonymous on the net" - thread?

I can't say I like where google, facebook and the whole net is heading.

Maybe this stickied thread by Tunafish is what you're thinking of.

Maybe someone should create a "The big google alternative services thread - How to truly stay anonymous on the net" - thread?

I can't say I like where google, facebook and the whole net is heading.

folks go on about how much facebook knows about us, how much an ace tool it is for the likes of the CIA (who are part owners of it).  think how long google has gotten to know pretty much everything you've searched for.  i'll bet their logs go way back beyond your own.  and now they're venturing into the social-networking territory... just shortly after they come out and say they'll co-operate with any authority and hand over any information about anyone.... .... ...

i wouldnt say i fear them, but i sure as shi* aint complacent and blissfully ignorant of what a monster elephant is in the room.

if in doubt, scroogle

[disclaimer - i didnt read hardly anything in this thread, just wanted to throw in my two cents.  ... probably for the better... more on-topic, and less sucked into the tangents.]

Are we afraid of google?

Well theres a lot to consider, it's a valid point as any I've stumbled upon in a while...

Afraid of a search engine giant who's CEO Eric Shmidt was quoted as having said "we know roughly who you are, roughly what you care about, roughly who your friends are.” But have no fear because the Google CEO also predicts that, “…. every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites."

Google is one of about four search engines that matter. There are many more than four engines, but only about four have the technology to crawl much of the web on a regular basis of which google is one of them.

I am of course referring to the google cache feature of the google robot, an angel to some a demon to others. The privacy struggle, which includes both the old issue of consumer protection and this new issue of government surveillance, means that the question of how Google treats the data it collects from users is critical. Given that Google is so central to the web, whatever attitude it takes toward privacy has massive implications for the rest of the web in general and for other search engines in particular.

Apple, Microsoft & Google are a few of the mainstream companies which are swift to defend there intellectual copyright over there products, a copyright which if you read between the lines mean that they own the technology behind the product in question, which in turn means they can effectively do what ever they like within legal reason to the data so obtained.

Google was the first search engine to use a cookie that expires in 2038. This was at a time when federal websites were prohibited from using persistent cookies altogether. Now it's years later, and immortal cookies are commonplace among search engines; Google set the standard because no one bothered to challenge them. This cookie places a unique ID number on your hard disk. Anytime you land on a Google page, you get a Google cookie if you don't already have one. If you have one, they read and record your unique ID number.

Only now Google enjoys a 75 percent monopoly for all external referrals to most websites. Webmasters cannot avoid seeking Google's approval these days, assuming they want to increase traffic to their site. If they try to take advantage of some of the known weaknesses in Google's semi-secret algorithms, they may find themselves penalized by Google, and their traffic disappears. There are no detailed, published standards issued by Google, and there is no appeal process for penalized sites. Google is completely unaccountable. Most of the time Google doesn't even answer email from webmasters.

;)

Whilst I am not certainly not afraid of google, I do not use chrome or chromium if I can help it for long, I prefer IceCat, IceWeasel or Firefox for the valid reason that it lets you get nitty gritty with the coding and whilst I like apple, microsoft & google, I certainly don't trust them enough to believe they have the consumers best interests at heart!

It's more of an issue of trust, than it is of fear!

Not going to jump into the discussion, but those of you who do worry about Google, have you heard of Ixquick?

Yep, and there's more alternatives over here:
http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/post/74826/

If you've something to add there, please do!

cheers,
Tuna