Filed under: Good news, Competitive strategy, Google (GOOG), Marketing and advertising
When Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) says “Don’t be evil,” is the company just talking, or does it meant what it says? When it comes to actually dominating the world’s information (which is its goal, make no mistake), it’s hard to do that and not be evil.
But, when it comes to ridding its web index of malicious websites that could infect a user’s computer with viruses or other malcontent, Google is doing global web searchers a solid. Just because a web result lands in Google’s index does not mean there isn’t something hazardous lurking on that website that could exploit your PC in the worst possible way — perhaps without you even knowing it.
Last week, Google removed thousands of these websites from its global website index, and has now given regular web surfers the ability to report others as they come up. In other words, it’s trying to rid the world’s largest website index of useless junk that’s mainly intended for criminal purposes. This is something that Google should have begun years ago, but it is good to see the web’s largest search provider begin now.
A concerted effort by criminals to hijack top spots in Google’s ranking system has taken quite a while to accomplish, but Google is fighting back. Therein lies a large future problem — if Google continues to dominate access to information around the world, it will become as big a target as Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ: MSFT) has become due to the sheer numbers alone. Although Google might not be doing evil, it sure is the recipient of a lot of it.
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