Google: Don't Be Evil; Do Be CIA Lackey
The most interesting theory I've ever heard about Google is that the search company is actually a CIA-backed operation. What evidence, you may ask? First, there's Keyhole, the mapping company Google recently bought which was partially financed by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's nonprofit venture fund, back in February. Google's acquisition is actually listed on In-Q-Tel's website.

Then there's the always popular Lynndie England conspiracy theory, that Google scrubbed its databases of all pictures of the Abu Graib prisoner abuse scandal in order to placate its CIA masters, as reported on Slashdot, Google Blogoscoped, which Google gave a half-baked response to. A more reasonable reason is that Google Images does a horrible job of keyword matching, but Google won't say that.

Sleeping Monkey says Google has an "obsession" for cataloging all your data, wherever it may be, whether in you emails, instant messages, the web, your diary, your photos, your relationships, and your whole freaking computer. And now it can see pictures of your house from space!

How about the fact that Google consistently uses the CIA as a top result on searches for various countries? Searching for any country, say East Timor, lists the CIA's factbook entry, which makes no mention of U.S. involvement in the Indonesian invasion of the country back in 1975. Or that the CIA runs its info off of Google Search Appliances, something John Battelle calls Spookle?

It is a lot of fun (and really scary) to speculate that Google is a CIA front, designed to infiltrate our homes with its promises of "Don't Be Evil", reading everything we ever write and preparing to destroy our lives. Personally, I think Google's corporate culture is a little too playful to be a secret spy headquarters, but then again, maybe its all a front. Lies, lies, lies! They're all out to get you! Stop Google before it's to0101001100101001010

- posted by Nathan Weinberg @ 11/07/2004 11:32:00 PM