Has Google Finally Overstepped The Mark As A Search Engine?

Google is a search engine – we all know that, don’t we? Actually – Google is not a search engine, it is a massive corporation that is continually digging for information. Some seem to think that Google is mining too much information across the web, particularly when it comes to personal details.Their latest offering may have overstepped the mark.

Sidewiki is their latest offering. It is a tool that can be added to FireFox or Internet Explorer that takes commenting to a whole new level. Rather than commenting on a site, you would leave a comment on the ‘Side Wiki’ – hence the name, Sidewiki. For website owners there is a real risk to reputation management and other issues related to comments, particularly those that are negative.

The tool is added to a browser and as users visit web pages the Side Wiki displays relevant comments. These comments are ranked according to a number of factors such as how many comments a user has left and how many votes (in the form of marking the comment as useful) that comment has received. Here are the downsides for web site owners.

• You cannot opt out
• You cannot delete, edit or in any other way affect a comment once it has been left
• You cannot dispute a comment and ask for removal
• You cannot protect your reputation
• Links to other sites and blogs will appear on Sidewiki if they relate to your content
• Competitors can attack your sites, products or company with impunity

Are there any benefits to Sidewiki? They are hard to find and limited in number:

• You can comment on sites related to yours which will give you a presence on those sites
• You can leave a comment on your site
• Your site may appear on another site’s Side Wiki if it is relevant

These are worrying moves when it comes to reputation management. It is also a worrying move to see links to other sites on your pages. You work hard to attract traffic and Google will provide that traffic an easy exit. I don’t know if Google will ever use this information to assist with page rankings – I can only assume that over time they will.

I can only see one upside to this whole issue – and I believe it will become a big issue over the next few months. It may perhaps be a little like many other add-ons for FireFox or IE, and that is that most users won’t bother installing or activating any accounts. This may limit the amount of data that Google can collect.

It will be interesting to see if users do take up the toolbar. It will also be interesting to see how many users actually use it. Would you use it? Are you concerned that your reputation could be damaged? Perhaps you should be. You can check out what Google has to say on their Google Blog.