Google is the only company with a mission to organize the world’s public and private information, and it is also unique in having developed more ways, to monitor more people’s behavior, more intimately than any entity ever.
Please see this one page graphic summary to get a big picture view of the almost unimaginable scale and scope of the intimate private information that Google routinely records and analyzes.
Since all other companies have much more narrow and focused businesses and missions than Google’s unbounded ambitions, they represent a fraction or slice of the whole public and private data pie that Google collects, stores, and analyzes.
Other than Google, only an Orwellian “Big Brother” state would aspire to collect and store indefinitely all private, intimate information on everyone online like Google is doing.
We know information is power.
The problem with Google becoming Big Brother Inc., is that if a state were to combine its state powers with Google’s unique information monopoly, unaccountability, and surveillance powers, it creates huge natural temptations for corruption and abuse in the absence of meaningful competition, strong checks and balances, and real public accountability.
