[Corp. Watch] Is Google's new browser a Trojan horse?

[Corporation Watch]

Is Google Turning Into Big Brother?

  The debut of Google's new browser may have been quiet for a reason

By Michael S. Malone

(ABC News, Sept. 5, 2008) -- While we're transfixed by the  
presidential election, in the world of high tech another duel between  
two well-funded, take-no-quarter candidates has just emerged, and in  
the long run the impact on our daily lives may be nearly as great --  
and perhaps even sinister.

	As you probably heard, on Monday [Sept. 1] -- that is, on a national  
holiday, when business announcements are almost never made -- Google  
rolled out Chrome, its new web browser.

	Why the odd timing? Hard to say. Google surely knows that just about  
anything it does these days is going to cause a news frenzy -- and  
especially when it's announcing its first thrust into a huge new market.

	So, perhaps it hoped to temper coverage of Chrome to a degree, and  
drag it out for several days. Or perhaps Google was unsure about the  
product itself, and didn't want to overhype it -- and then face a  
potential backlash.

	Or, maybe Google just didn't think Chrome was that important, saw a  
window between the two political conventions, and rushed it out.

	Google's official explanation is that the Labor Day release of Chrome  
was an accident, and that the [overly broad language in the] Terms of  
Use attached to it were simply a cut-and-paste from other Google  
products.

	We will leave it to the reader to decide if these are viable  
explanations from a multi-billion company regarding one of its biggest  
new products in years -- and, if true, what it says about Google's  
competence in handling some of your most sensitive information.

	Now that Chrome is out and being field-tested by reviewers, I think  
we can rule out the second and the third scenarios. That leaves the  
first. But why would a company that knows it has a solid and  
newsworthy product on its hands intentionally dampen media coverage of  
it?

	The answer, I think, was that it was a long-term strategic decision  
to make Chrome look almost like an afterthought. And I think that  
decision was made at the highest levels of Google, perhaps by CEO Eric  
Schmidt.

	Why? Because Google's ambitions are bigger than most of us have ever  
imagined, and the company is now rich and powerful enough to execute  
them -- even if it means the short-term sacrifice of a major new  
revenue source.

	One more thing: If Google pulls off this strategy, it will be the  
most valuable company on the planet. It will also be the scariest, and  
we should start worrying about that right now.

	First, a little background. Google sits at the confluence of two  
historic Silicon Valley philosophical streams.

	One, which comes from Sergey Brinn and Larry Page, the two founders,  
reaches back all of the way to the early days of computing and  
continues forward through the world of gamers, hackers, Apple, and the  
Web 2.0 generation.

	It is essentially utopian in its belief that technology -- especially  
the Web -- will bring about a better world (hence, Google's "Don't Be  
Evil" motto). This includes absolutist (some would even say  
totalitarian) tendencies, in that it believes that the empiricism of  
science and technology supersedes messy human institutions.

	Thus, it is proudly amoral, which is why it can celebrate hackers --  
or for that matter, Steve Jobs -- as heroes, as long as they remain  
innovators.

	The second stream is embodied in a single figure, Eric Schmidt.  
Schmidt is perhaps the smartest person I know -- and one of the few  
people in tech history (Andy Grove is another, and the comparison is  
telling) who has ever successfully made the leap from being a  
corporate chief scientist to Fortune 500 CEO.

	But the trip wasn't easy. Twice, Schmidt watched all of his efforts  
come to nothing in the face of devastating assaults by Bill Gates and  
Microsoft. The first time, at Sun Microsystems, Schmidt was all but  
helpless to do anything; the second time, at Novell, where he was CEO,  
he had to take the blame.

	In those days, everyone in Silicon Valley was obsessed with  
Microsoft. It seemed an unstoppable force that would slowly crush one  
market after another until it had rolled up the entire tech world.

	Most companies and entrepreneurs either hunkered down and tried to  
ride out the storm, or simply ran way -- finding market niches where  
Microsoft was unlikely to follow. But three Valleyites, each of them a  
genius of one type or another, and each of them already burned by  
Microsoft, set out on their own to figure out how to beat Gates.

	The first was Larry Ellison, whose company Oracle was nearly as big  
as Microsoft. Ruthless and insanely competitive, Ellison tried to draw  
users off their PCs and onto a theoretical "network computer," failed,  
and then embarked on an acquisition campaign that essentially encased  
his customer base behind impenetrable walls.

	The second was Marc Andreessen, who watched his beloved Netscape be  
crushed by Gates' borderline illegal attack with Internet Explorer,  
quietly withdrew upstream from Microsoft, and went into the "tool"  
business, devising new ways for users to use the Internet without  
Microsoft.

	But neither went so far, with such success, as Schmidt. He spent  
years figuring out how to beat Microsoft -- and when he was given  
Google, he knew he now had the perfect club.

	Microsoft still took most of the world's users to the Internet, but  
once they got there, Google owned them. The Web was all about  
searching for information -- and because Google's search service was  
free, billions of users happily took Google up on the offer.

	That might have been enough. Google is now one of the world's most  
valuable and influential companies. Much of the planet's population  
passes through its simple and friendly portals every day, and in the  
process it has snatched up a sizable chunk of the advertising money  
out there.

	Meanwhile, no one talks much about Microsoft these days. It would  
seem that Schmidt has had his revenge, and the techno-utopians of the  
world have been vindicated. But if you think that means the battle is  
over, don't kid yourself.

Did Google Lie?
	If anything, the dreams of both have just begun to unfold. Schmidt  
seems no longer content to defeat Microsoft, but to become it -- and  
more. Moreover, he's got the army of brilliant, amoral young  
footsoldiers to do the job.

	Remember, for these young techno-utopians, technology trumps all,  
even privacy. We saw a glimpse of that earlier this year when Facebook  
-- a seemingly benign social network for young people -- quietly  
implemented [a feature called] Beacon that tracked users' purchases  
and notified their friends in hopes of influencing their future  
purchases.

	Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg professed surprise at the massive  
backlash against Beacon and shut it down -- but left the door opened  
for future surveillance programs.

	But nowhere is the power to apply technology for its own sake more  
available than at Google. And despite the company's motto, and  
childlike logo and home page, this is the real driving force behind  
the company. And the long-term goal of this applied technology? Google  
has already said it: to manage all of the world's information.

	Five years ago, this seemed harmless enough, even welcome. The Web is  
a huge, messy place -- so what's wrong with having some help  
navigating through it?

	But it is only as Google has grown larger, and after it has taken  
over the big, general stuff (Web search) and begun focusing on the  
smaller, more specialized stuff (libraries, personal records, search  
patterns) that we begin to understand what "all" means ... and what  
Google is willing to do to get it.

	For example, in a barely noticed blog entry, Computerworld's Clint  
Boulton recounted a conversation with a Google insider who admitted  
that whatever the company was saying publicly -- and to Congress --  
about user privacy, it was indeed tracking not just user's searches,  
but also their identities -- so-called "Deep Packet Inspection."

	The entry drew few readers, and no comments, but it did attract  
attention from one source: A senior Google executive called the  
magazine to get it to back off the story. If true, does this mean that  
Google lied to Congress about user privacy? Probably not -- at least  
not in the way that Google had carefully phrased its words.

	Then there is Google's odd acquiescence to the demands by  
authoritarian regimes around the world, especially China, to censor  
its search operations in those countries. These actions, inexplicable  
at the time, only become clear when one assumes that Google's real  
business is not providing a service to its users, but in owning the  
world's data.

	And that brings us back to Chrome. Why so low key an introduction?  
And why suddenly turn on a solid partnership with browser provider  
Mozilla? The answer, I think, has two parts.

Google: From Microsoft Killer to Big Brother?
	First, Google believes that Chrome could be its Microsoft killer. Not  
only does it have the potential to beat MS Explorer but, fulfilling  
Ellison's old dream, it could be a way to let users easily use  
applications over the Web -- and thus circumvent Microsoft's lock on  
Office, and even Windows, the very core of its business.

	But a second reason is more sinister. Only a few people noticed that,  
in its original Terms of Service for signing up for Chrome, Google  
demanded "perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, royalty free and non- 
exclusive" license to any materials users create with the browser.  
(Three days later, Google announced that it was rescinding the clause.)

	And that's only part of the story: An earlier reviewer of Chrome  
noted that the browser almost seems to work "too well." For example,  
with a few keystrokes, Chrome will go into an online banking site and  
find account numbers, balances, and transaction activity.

	He suggested that it is a security flaw in the product. I'm not so  
sure.

	Microsoft only wanted all of our money. Increasingly, it seems that  
Google wants all of our data. In running away from the evil empire,  
have we now instead rushed into the arms of Big Brother?

-----------------------

Michael Malone has covered Silicon Valley and high-tech for more than  
25 years. His work has appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, the  
Economist, Fortune magazine, the New York Times, and the Wall Street  
Journal.