Emotions against Google!

Are emotions running high against Google? All of a sudden, everything is going against the search giant, except of course, the big-moolah. Sample this:

• Who's who of IT industry questioning Google's monopolistic move to buyout DoubleClick - the list is getting longer everyday.


• $1 billion lawsuit from Viacom for YouTube's alleged copyright infringement.


• Privacy International placing Google dead last in its evaluation of Internet service companies in terms of consumer data protection, labeling it hostile to privacy.


• Came under the scanner for keeping a lifelong record of every search query of each of its users, along with the IP address the query was executed from and a cookie ID to link together queries from a user's computer even if the IP address changes - a direct link to the point preceding this.


• Allegations that Google underestimates click fraud rates even after it paid a $90 million settlement in a click fraud case in March of last year.


• Amazon deciding to use M$'s Live Search over Google's to provide search results on its site.


• Today's news that prompted this article, Microsoft replaces Google as the exclusive provider of display and contextual advertising on Digg.

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If the above seem more like the IT industry players standing up against their arguably biggest comptetitor today - then the mood among the users isn't all that forgiving too! Recently, when Google filed an antitrust complaint against M$'s Vista Search, people's reaction was, like: Google is the new bad-boy(girl ;)) - it was surprising to see people's sympathy with Microsoft (in a new role i.e. of a victim).

The higher one gets, the more visible one becomes to the public eye - hence more prone to public criticism. It's apparent celebrity status brings with it public scrutiny - but, at the moment it seems emotions against Google are at an all-time high which may be disastrous because when Microsoft used to be criticized, it didn't have a powerful competitor to gain advantage but in case of Google, it has a powerful foe to contend with, and it's ironically, Microsoft!