Addicted to Google?

Google - Is one of the largest and most commonly known search engines worldwide. One simply click to 'Search' can lead you to many places on the Web.
There have been many discussions about how Google has to much power over consumers lives. Google has expanded over the years, as more people have used it. Allowing you to pretty much plan your whole life around this one search engine. From the gmail as your domain name, Google docs used a lot by college students for uploading work and using the calendar to remind people of events or appointments, Google has converged in a way that it would be hard to use any other search engine or even imagine if it didn't exist.

Im not even sure how many consumers know that other search engines are available to use. I didn't know that until last week that 'DuckDuckGo' existed, and in fact since then I have been trying to use it but I am just so use to Google and knowing how it works, that I could be addicted like many other consumers. One of the benefits however to DuckDuckGo, which really made me think about how much we Google stuff is the idea that they don't record your searches unlike Google. The fact that Google record your searches, makes me sometimes question it's trust. It is a search engine that is used frequently by many, even when people are in a conversation and don't know or want to find something out they usually say 'I will Google it'. They are instantly able to find out the answer this may mean were addicted or that we just want to be able to know a lot more knowledge, which Google allows us to do.

The recent ideas about the privacy of Google makes me question whether to use it or not, however it is I, like many others all we know. Even with this knowledge that Google may be endangering our privacy, we choose to consume this. I think if you want to keep something really private you would not post it on the Internet anywhere, I understand that Google control emails and has google maps which shows people's location, but at the end of the day most of us, if not all of us have used all aspect of Google knowing full well that the information could be used anywhere. Lets be honest, many people don't read any terms and conditions so we could be signing our privacy away without even knowing as we are too lazy to click through the endless pages to read them. I feel that if Google are honest about privacy issue, people would still use it because they like how Google works. It may be effecting our independence and private life but so many people have 'different' lives through the Internet anyway that how do we know when someone is telling the truth anyway?. Google is just a tool for everyone to connect and find out information about other people/things worldwide.