Google announced yesterday on their blog that it would start having a secure search via SSL.

My question is Why?

We all remember last year on CNBC when Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt said:

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

If the internet is about being open and transparent as they want us to believe then why is there a need for any such privacy?

As I continued to read the blog post one particular phrase caught my attention:

Searching over SSL doesn’t reduce the data sent to Google — it only hides that data from third parties who seek it.

Read that again…

it only hides that data from third parties who seek it.

Google still knows what you are searching. I think the thing that is transparent here is that Google is an advertising company who just happens to be in the search engine game.  There are plenty of third party applications that rely heavily on data from Google. The ones that I see being adversely affected by this new encrypted search are the small advertising companies and software companies that are not going to be able to pay for that kind of information from Google. Particularly the firms that focus on SEO and PPC.

I’m sure that there are many other area of your life that Google would like to “control” as they place order to the world via the internet. Is this just another way to gain control of our personal information?

Is this just another tactic to regain control over our private information? Tell me what you think. Leave a comment below

The internet changes at the speed of thought and as users we constantly demand more new content and ways to interact with each other. But have you ever wondered what the future will hold for us online? The was the topic of conversation for Eric Schmidt recently in Orlando as he discussed the future of the web and Google.

Here’s a hint on a couple of things he talked about:

• The greatest challenge is how to rank “real time” content
• The web will be dominated but Chinese content. (new ICANN ruling becomes very important)

Photo credit: Gisela Giardino