[Hot] Can We Trust Google?
Earlier this week, Google announced in a blog post that the company had exposed the information of 500,000 or more users of Google+. As part of an audit, the company said, "we discovered a bug in one of the Google+ People APIs."
The problem with this admission, as many know, was the timing.
As Google noted in its blog: "We discovered and immediately patched this bug in March 2018."
In reality, Google announced the bug seven months after the fact, and only in light of a Wall Street Journal report on the breach. Google had failed to disclose the bug earlier, the Journal reported, "because of fears that doing so would draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage."
The fallout was swift.
As The Verge reported: "The damage is already spreading. The consumer version of Google+ is shutting down, German privacy regulators in Germany and the US are already looking into possible legal action, and former SEC officials are publicly speculating about what Google may have done wrong."
Yet the real problem, for Google at least, was not the breach, or the subsequent announcement of the closure of Google+, or even the impending legal issues. The problem was the cover-up.
For the first time, many in the online community are questioning Google's trustworthiness. We believe it is a fair question: Can we trust Google--the company so many of us rely on for our online marketing needs?
Can We Trust Google?
In recent years, the public relations firm, Edelman, noted in its annual "Trust Barometer" that more people trusted search engines for news than news outlets themselves. This was true in 2015, 2016, and 2017, at least.
But this year, in an age of intense skepticism about the media on both sides of the political spectrum, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed a decrease in trust for search engines (and social media) relative to traditional news.
Meanwhile, according to Edelman, general trust in search engines and social media in the US has dropped 11% overall since 2017.
Much of this distrust is the result of Facebook's recent problems, specifically the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
As we noted recently, this scandal...likely accounted for the results of a recent Pew Research Study, which found that "over a quarter of all users, and more than forty percent of younger users (ages 18-29), have removed the Facebook app from their phones...and over forty percent of users have taken a break from the site for a few weeks or more."
Read: Is Facebook Still a Viable Marketing Tool?
Google has largely avoided scandals; in fact, by some measures the company is the most trusted in the world.
This week, for example, PRWeek reported on the results of a study that identified Google as the company with the best reputation for corporate responsibility in the world. Tellingly, Google was immune to the erosion of trust that plagued the rest of the tech industry. As PRWeek noted:
"The tech industry’s overall corporate responsibility reputation declined the most of all industries, with a 3.9 point drop in workplace, a 2.9 point decline in citizenship, and a 2.7 point decline in governance. Tech fell by 3.1 points overall."
According to PRWeek, Google's "saving grace" in this survey was its "workplace reputation," famed in the business world for its shared sense of purpose.
Google did win first place on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For for six years running--from 2011 to 2017. Although, perhaps more telling, Google did not even make this year's list, like due to concerns about the apparent equality of its opportunities.
Although these measures of reputation do not speak precisely to the concerns of small business owners who use Google for online marketing, they do reveal a general view of the company's trustworthiness. And for now, that will have to be enough for most small business owners.
Despite this recent news, Google has proved itself to be generally reliable over its twenty-years of existence. Importantly, too, Google (unlike Facebook) is an absolute necessity for most small businesses. Imagine your business, for example, without Google My Business or any of Google's reputation-based services.
Can we trust Google? Probably. More importantly, should we trust Google? For now, yes.
In the end, it behooves most of us to be cautiously optimistic about Google's trustworthiness.
Google-Based Online Reputation Management with Stepman's SEO
The problem with this admission, as many know, was the timing.
As Google noted in its blog: "We discovered and immediately patched this bug in March 2018."
In reality, Google announced the bug seven months after the fact, and only in light of a Wall Street Journal report on the breach. Google had failed to disclose the bug earlier, the Journal reported, "because of fears that doing so would draw regulatory scrutiny and cause reputational damage."
The fallout was swift.
As The Verge reported: "The damage is already spreading. The consumer version of Google+ is shutting down, German privacy regulators in Germany and the US are already looking into possible legal action, and former SEC officials are publicly speculating about what Google may have done wrong."
Yet the real problem, for Google at least, was not the breach, or the subsequent announcement of the closure of Google+, or even the impending legal issues. The problem was the cover-up.
For the first time, many in the online community are questioning Google's trustworthiness. We believe it is a fair question: Can we trust Google--the company so many of us rely on for our online marketing needs?
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| The Google campus, in Mountain View, CA, is viewed by many to be a symbol of the company's enduring appeal. This recent news, however, may begin to change that narrative (Photo Source) |
Can We Trust Google?
In recent years, the public relations firm, Edelman, noted in its annual "Trust Barometer" that more people trusted search engines for news than news outlets themselves. This was true in 2015, 2016, and 2017, at least.
But this year, in an age of intense skepticism about the media on both sides of the political spectrum, the 2018 Edelman Trust Barometer revealed a decrease in trust for search engines (and social media) relative to traditional news.
Meanwhile, according to Edelman, general trust in search engines and social media in the US has dropped 11% overall since 2017.
Much of this distrust is the result of Facebook's recent problems, specifically the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
As we noted recently, this scandal...likely accounted for the results of a recent Pew Research Study, which found that "over a quarter of all users, and more than forty percent of younger users (ages 18-29), have removed the Facebook app from their phones...and over forty percent of users have taken a break from the site for a few weeks or more."
Read: Is Facebook Still a Viable Marketing Tool?
Google has largely avoided scandals; in fact, by some measures the company is the most trusted in the world.
This week, for example, PRWeek reported on the results of a study that identified Google as the company with the best reputation for corporate responsibility in the world. Tellingly, Google was immune to the erosion of trust that plagued the rest of the tech industry. As PRWeek noted:
"The tech industry’s overall corporate responsibility reputation declined the most of all industries, with a 3.9 point drop in workplace, a 2.9 point decline in citizenship, and a 2.7 point decline in governance. Tech fell by 3.1 points overall."
According to PRWeek, Google's "saving grace" in this survey was its "workplace reputation," famed in the business world for its shared sense of purpose.
Google did win first place on Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For for six years running--from 2011 to 2017. Although, perhaps more telling, Google did not even make this year's list, like due to concerns about the apparent equality of its opportunities.
Although these measures of reputation do not speak precisely to the concerns of small business owners who use Google for online marketing, they do reveal a general view of the company's trustworthiness. And for now, that will have to be enough for most small business owners.
Despite this recent news, Google has proved itself to be generally reliable over its twenty-years of existence. Importantly, too, Google (unlike Facebook) is an absolute necessity for most small businesses. Imagine your business, for example, without Google My Business or any of Google's reputation-based services.
Can we trust Google? Probably. More importantly, should we trust Google? For now, yes.
In the end, it behooves most of us to be cautiously optimistic about Google's trustworthiness.
Google-Based Online Reputation Management with Stepman's SEO
Are you taking advantage of Google's free suite of online marketing tools, like Google My Business and Google Posts? By taking advantage of the newest online marketing strategy, ORM, you can discover immediate first page results.
Alex Stepman, of Stepman's SEO, offers a Google-Based Online Reputation Management, which helps brands "leverage the influence of the key player in ORM." To learn more about how you can boost both your ORM and SEO with Google My Business, call Stepman's SEO today: 215-900-9398.
Alex Stepman, of Stepman's SEO, offers a Google-Based Online Reputation Management, which helps brands "leverage the influence of the key player in ORM." To learn more about how you can boost both your ORM and SEO with Google My Business, call Stepman's SEO today: 215-900-9398.