Google Watch

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www.google-watch.org/

This extremely critical and well-researched site offers a tonic to blind Google mania. Google Watch believes, in its words, 'There's a struggle going on for the soul of the web, and the focal point of this struggle is Google itself.'

Google Watch has problems with Google's dominance and the influence it wields. The site also takes issue with the PageRank system, claiming that it unfairly adds to the prominence of popular sites that don't necessarily deserve their popularity. Further, Google Watch dislikes Google's use of cookies to track user behavior through the site. Google Watch even believes that Google's cached copy of Web sites is illegal, not to mention problematic for Webmasters. Google's general secretiveness is raked over the coals at Google Watch.

Google Watch is an investigative site, a scathing indictor of Google's operations, an explainer of technical arcana, and a loud whistleblower. In May of 2003, when it became apparent to Webmasters that something strange was happening in the index, and the results of April's deep crawl had seemingly been discarded, Google Watch provided the most objective (and, of course, highly critical) voice amid the swirling speculation.

Judging by Google Watch's high PageRank, many people are reading. You should too, if you're interested in the dark side of the Google phenomenon.

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