My Google Shame

A four point manifesto was published on Read Write Web yesterday about how to avoid a Google media monoculture. The manifesto is aimed squarely at the advertising side of the Google behemoth. In truth we are in need of a far wider ranging manifesto, even those who dislike the extent of Google's power find it creeping into their lives.

My own (daily) Google shame includes:
-Google Search Engine (approximately 50% of my searches)
-Blogger
-Google Analytics
-Google Ads
-Google Scholar

Google infects my online life due to a combination of habit, ease, and lack of alternatives. Whilst I can try to wean myself off of search, I have no idea how easy it would be to change the blogging software (without losing everything), whilst once you have started one analytics program you are loathed to change to another which calculates the numbers differently. At least I can hold my head up when emailing (Hotmail), reading my RSS feeds (Newsgator), reading the news (BBC), or doing a bit of social networking (anything but Orkut).

Regarding the 4-point manifesto, in addition to wishing for a wider ranging manifesto there is one point I do disagree with: a push towards cost per action (CPA). Whilst I understand that steps are necessary in preventing people clicking on their own links purely for the ad-revenue, CPA would tip the balance too far in the advertisers favour. Why should I have ads on my site that earn nothing because the advertisers product isn't wanted on closer inspection? It also doesn't bear thinking about how long I would have to wait for someone to not only click on one of the ads, but to actually do something on the advertiser's site. After almost three weeks of Google ads, and 1,438 page impressions, I have only had 2 ads clicked on!