There are many, many reasons to love Google, it would not have become so popular without being a somewhat competent, useful tool. Of course it is far from perfect but it does what it does so damn well that criticism tends roll off it like water off a ducks back. For me, this is a major concern, when a company becomes so powerful and all encompassing that they can basically ignore the criticism and even flaunt the law (as they have with various copyright concerns, notably the Google books project). Having so much power is a dangerous thing. When Lord Acton wrote "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" in 1887 (yes I used Google to look it up!) he may have had monarchs in mind but in the 21st century it is Corporations, especially those that are media related that seem to hold all the power and Google certainly has an absolute monopoly in the search engine market.
Now I am not a known conspiracy theorist but I definitely think the all pervasive power Google holds over Internet needs to be kept in check. One of the company's mottoes is "Don't be evil" but I think their definition of evil may be radically different to mine. Basically stealing the copyrighted work of thousands of authors, to me, is evil. I realise copyright law is in a state of flux at the moment but to offer no re-numeration to the authors of the books they are copying is just wrong. How are people supposed to earn a living writing if their work is going to be stolen by Google?
Here is a link to a fantastic article by a blogger named Danny Sullivan who wrote an article in 2006 "25 things I hate about Google" which went viral at the time, showing just how disgruntled many Google users were. 5 years latter Danny revisited his article to see what Google had fixed and what still remains questionable.
http://searchengineland.com/25-things-i-hate-about-google-revisited-5-years-later-67969
Of course there is more to Google than just searching. When you open a Google account, and tailor your search page to your needs. On my iGoogle page I have Google translate, which I use all the time for work. I also regularly use Google maps and Gmail. Last year I started to use Google calander and whilst I found it somewhat useful I actually thought the constant reminders via email and messages to my phone was annoying. I guess other people find it helpful I just found it all too much. It is something I continue to use this year, but I also have a paper diary as well which gets a much bigger workout. I find old fashioned paper more useful because you don't have to turn it on to access it and the kids can add things without fear of them messing up settings or deleting things they aren't supposed to. I had never used Google Drive until today and I found its funtionality quite easy to adapt to. It could see its benefits, particularly if you need to collaborate with someone from another organisation.
So all in all Google is like a family member, you can't imagine life without them, you work (live) with them everyday and sometimes the annoy you to death!
