| Anticompetitive -- and a great way to spy The first thing that is of serious concern about this move is that it is anticompetitive. Google is in the Internet search advertising business; so, essentially, are ISPs who advertise via DNS redirection. (The pages often look very much like Google search results, with not just advertising but also search results which list sites to which the user may have intended to go.) In fact, many naive Internet users simply type search terms into the URL bar of their browsers, expecting the browser to magically take them to the right place or at least return appropriate search results. Due to DNS redirection (which is optional on every ISP that does it), there's a good chance that the user will actually be pointed toward what he or she is looking for.
Google, in essence, is attempting to cut off what is, IMHO, a legitimate revenue stream for one very useful form of competitive "search engine."
It's also found another great way to spy on Internet users. With your DNS queries flowing through it servers, it will know where you go, and will be able to merge this information with the dossiers it creates on users via GMail messages, Google Analytics spyware scripts, and DoubleClick spyware tracking cookies.
Wouldn't use this for the world.
--Brett Glass |
