Google speeds up the web but it’ll be a privacy nightmare

The day ends in a “y”, time for another Google post. Google has launched Google Webaccelerator which basically speeds up your web speed by caching everything on their servers. The odd thing is that it is designed for broadband users. I’d much prefer if it was done for all those on 56k connections or worse. They need it most. It says 56k users can still use it though.

This might prove to be a privacy nightmare though as Google is now actively caching websites and they are acting as a proxy. The world’s biggest proxy ? Given the fact that they happily censor sites to keep the Chinese and American Governments happy, will they do the same when they become the worlds biggest web proxy ?

It’s more than search now, this is the start of content hosting. Is the next move to offer actual server space for websites ? They are now hosting our email, our photos and recently have started on hosting our videos. Since you can charge for your video content, I wonder will they bring in payment systems for accessing other content on websites they’d host ? In the short term I wonder what kind of traffic decrease will webhosters see and in the long term will they make less from their hosting business ? How long before Google hosts 20% of the web ? Do we really want one company to control it all, even if their public motto is “Don’t be evil” ?

More details from Search Engine Watch

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