Why’s everyone being so hard on Google today? Obviously Google news features in my online life virtually every day but very rarely in the local paper on the train to work - three times!

From my point of view, Google makes the world a better place by pushing the boundaries and providing excellent services to everyone, almost always for free. Email, web mastering and analytics, advertising, maps, dynamic atlas, news, blogging and let’s not forget of course the incredible site and image search that made it what it is today.

But the 3rd/4th July seem to have become Gang up on Google day. The biggest world-wide story is of course the ruling that Google must handover information regarding the viewing habits of every user that’s ever watched a video on Youtube to media giant Viacom. Ridiculously huge stats were thrown about regarding the number of viewers that have watched billions of hours worth of illegal, copyrighted video content on the site.

Get the full story from the professionals at the BBC.

Next on the cards is the proposed block on allowing Google to photograph areas of the UK for it’s Street View service. In another ridiculous privacy and human rights ’scandal’; UK based rights group Privacy International have claimed that Street View breaks data protection laws. The primary case is that people don’t want pictures of themselves put up on an international website without their consent…

Well, Street View wouldn’t really work if it had to stop at every road and ask everyone if they wouldn’t mind their photo taken… absurd I say! Again, full story on the BBC site on the ‘Google Street View block‘.

The third and rather dwarfed story regards another human rights/data protection controversy - Google’s privacy policy and it’s apparent deliberate inconspicuousness. Yet another ridiculous attempt to gang up on the Internet mammoth - Privacy groups are accusing them of breaking California law by being reluctant to display a direct link to it’s Privacy policy on it’s homepage. Well that’s odd, I just checked and it’s definitely there - perhaps small but easily identifiable… unless perhaps it’s quickly been added in light of this debate?

Whatever the case, it seems another ridiculous dig. Google have to collect private information for the sake of benefiting us. I can’t express the ease of being able to check my emails, monitor my websites and view my personal search history to remember ‘just how I got to that great site’ all within the same account and website.

Leave Google alone, I know it can take care of itself but what did it ever do to you!