Take a moment to think about your day: How many things did you do online? Perhaps you made a call or two via WhatsApp. You sent at least one WhatsApp text. You might have looked up a restaurant, office, or other location on Google Maps, perhaps run a Google search, and used Gmail to send an email. You might have built a shopping cart on Amazon after spotting a brand while scrolling Instagram. Along the way, you may have forgotten to book an Uber, until a WhatsApp message reminded you – “where are you?”
Big Tech companies are increasingly running our lives. We rely on the apps for many, if not most, of our basic tasks. And the result is that we trust them to give us the right information, connect to our loved ones, bring us things securely, and get us places safely. That is a lot of trust placed in a very small group of private, profit-driven companies. What happens if they are incorrect? A lot of damage.
And it can happen to anyone. It happened to my partner and me.
To celebrate his birthday, my partner Vijay decided to host a small party at our home. We reached for our trusty neighborhood shop Seasons Wines. For the last few years, Google has improved its search results for several categories with “cards” – a conveniently summarized panel of all information related to what you just searched for. In the case of a business, this card throws up its full name, address, Google Maps location, and a helpful “call” button linking directly to their number.
