Google's trust deficit

Mark Wilson, summing up his thoughts on last week’s Digital Surrey Google Maps talk:

Unfortunately, there are many who will not trust Google – and I find it interesting that Google is an advocate of consuming open data to add value to its products but I see very little being put back in terms of data sets for others to use. Google’s argument is that it spent a lot of money gathering and processing that data; however it could also be argued that Google gets a lot for free and maybe there is a greater benefit to society in freely sharing that information in a non-proprietary format (rather than relying on the use of Google tools).

Google has gone from one of the most trusted companies on the internet to one of the least in less than four years. I’d suggest that it needs to spend a lot less time on parachuting with Google Glass and dubious entertainment devices, and a lot more on rebuilding that trust.

I really want them to sort this out. Google have done, and are doing, great things. But if they can’t win back our trust, their room for doing more is going to get ever smaller.

Image is of a window in Farnham Castle, the venue for the event.