The Android Kill Switch -- Big Brother In The House?
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The public is divided as to its opinion on what Google is. Is it a benign tech giant, looking out for its customers' welfare? Is it this wolf in sheep's clothing -- a malignant Big Brother waiting for the right time to pounce on billions of users dependent on its data and services? Or is it just another indifferent moneymaking machine, only out to make a buck out of its excellence?
Some tech pundits are wary of Google as an information behemoth. As a Silicon Valley insider once commented, "Google knows too much; it has too much of our data. We really should be wary about it." While you could shrug the comment off, when you think about it, Google DOES know too much: your search history, your email, and if you use it to power your other accounts, it will know everything about those, too. And now with the Android maturing into a very lucrative, burgeoning field, and Google Plus Project exploding even before it officially launched, Google may well know too much about one user.
Instead of appeasing your paranoia, however, we'd like to stoke it even further -- by introducing the Android "Kill Switch."
Way back in 2010, the Android developers had already discussed the presence of such a function: a remote admin capability of Google by which they can remotely uninstall renegade apps on Android users' phones. They had initially developed it after an app that was built for research purposes was deployed improperly and had to be cleaned up. Recently, they exercised it over downright malicious software, a.k.a. malware, which came from an old program that was traded around and used by malicious companies to mine data from users' Android units.
Google exercised its totalitarian Android powers for the good, in order to keep its Android community a safe tech network, in spite of the onslaught of malicious developers.
Google seems to demonstrate the capacity to exercise restraint and good judgment in the use of potentially powerful, even totalitarian functionality. However, for how long?
Let's just hope they will uphold the interests of the everyday consumer before letting power as potentially all-encompassing as their "Kill Switch" take over and call the shots. As the wise men warned, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Crossing our fingers.
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