Yet depending on how you define evil, Google’s willingness — until this week — to allow the Chinese government to censor web results might just qualify. On the other hand, the company’s decision to offer only uncensored results from its newly relocated servers off the mainland could be seen as a push for democracy — or at least freedom of speech.

As part of the cost of doing business in the People’s Republic of China, Google allowed its web searches to be filtered. For example, a search for Tiananmen Square might not bring up a site that described the role of the Chinese government in crushing dissent.

Google was never happy with this arrangement, but put up with it until its servers and the Gmail accounts of Chinese activists were hacked earlier this year. As a result, Google said enough was enough and that it would stop cooperating with China’s censors.

The search giant reportedly attempted to get China to agree to lift the censorship, but, failing that, decided to just move its search operations to Hong Kong. Google says it intends to keep a sales office and research and development facilities in China, though the sales team may wind up with less business going forward.

Hong Kong, a former British colony, operates under a different set of rules than the rest of mainland China. As a result, Google can offer its unfiltered search there.

While shifting the servers to Hong Kong may seem like a brilliant end-run around Chinese censorship, it’s more of a symbolic victory.

Thanks to “the Great Firewall of China,” authorities in Beijing have the ability to block access to Google.hk or allow access but prevent people from going to links found in a Google search. It’s even possible for Chinese censors to prevent mainland users from seeing the results of a Google search even if they access the site. So, at the end of the day, if China wants to keep its 400 million online users away from Google or from search results, it can do that.

However, information has a way of seeping out and China’s efforts to suppress the Internet will not succeed in the long run. I’m not saying this out of ideology (though I do believe in freedom of information) but from history. The Soviet Union was able to remain intact despite the considerable military strength of its foes, but wasn’t able to withstand the power of the fax machine and early e-mail systems used by activists. There will people in China who have the know-how and skills to get around the filters, just as there are students in America who know how to get around school content filters.

But while information may be free, running a company like Google requires resources, business deals and advertising revenue. Because of its revenue stream from other parts of the world, I’m sure Google could operate Google.hk indefinitely without a yuan of Chinese revenue, but this move is likely to have at least a small impact on Google’s bottom line. Also, there is the prospect that Google might be denying itself from a very profitable market.

The New York Times reported that China Mobile, the country’s biggest cellular carrier, might cancel a deal to put the Google search engine on its home page. There is also speculation that the country’s second largest carrier might delay or cancel plans to introduce a cell phone based on the Google Android operating system. And if the Chinese government decides to permanently block access to Google.hk, it could spell the end of any advertising revenue for the site.

China has more net users than America has people and, unlike the U.S. where Internet use is ubiquitous, most of China’s 1.3 billion people aren’t online yet.

Eventually, China could be an extremely lucrative market; by not playing nice with Chinese authorities, Google could wind up being shut out of billions of dollars of revenue.

But that’s a risk that — I think — that’s worth taking for a company that prides itself on not doing evil.

For months the two companies have competed in the mobile-phone market thanks to Google’s Android operating system, and that competition is fiercer now that Google has stamped its logo on the back of the Nexus One (designed by Google and manufactured by HTC). Despite some differences, the new Google smartphone looks a lot like an iPhone.

There’s competition on other fronts as well, including the operating system business.

In its initial blog post in July, Google positioned Chrome OS as “an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks.” That alone could harm Apple if Chrome-powered netbooks take sales away from Mac laptops. But now there’s talk about both Chrome and Android being used on tablet devices that could compete with Apple’s just announced iPad.

Concept of what a Google tablet might look like (source: Google)

There have been no product announcements, but Google’s Chrome Web site is displaying “visual explorations of how a Chrome OS tablet UI (user interface) might look in hardware.” The illustrations provide only a vague idea of what such a tablet might be like, but their very existence indicates that Google may be eyeing the market that Apple hopes to bust open.

Just in case one tablet operating system isn’t enough of a threat to Apple, Google is potentially going after the iPad with two operating systems at once. Android, in addition to Chrome, could also be used to create a potential iPad killer.

At last month’s Consumer Electronics Show, MSI displayed a 10-inch tablet running Google’s Android operating system.

It’s important to emphasize that neither the Google concept drawings nor the MSI prototype represents a real product. But what they do represent is the possibility, and perhaps the intention, of Google to quickly enter the tablet marketplace.

To be sure, there are important differences between Apple and Google. Apple is more focused and disciplined — it works long and hard on a very small number of products and keeps quiet about them until they’re almost ready for prime time. Then, with great fanfare, Steve Jobs announces them to the world and puts them on sale shortly thereafter.

Google throws lots of things against the wall to see what sticks. The company’s experimental culture is so strong that employees are allowed to devote 20 percent of their time to any project that strikes their fancy, some of which actually see the light of day as products or services.

Apple’s formula — at least with the iPhone — worked like a charm. The hype was followed by a product that delighted most early reviewers and customers. And although I questioned in last week’s column whether the iPad can live up to its hype, I acknowledge that it is an innovative product that might do well when it hits the market.

Google’s approach is usually to pre-announce months in advance and rely on partners like HTC (and now Motorola) to build devices around its open source software. Unlike the first iPhone, the initial Android phone — the HTC G1 — got tepid reviews. But with the release of the Motorola Droid and Google’s Nexus One, Android is starting to win fans and respect.

Google’s initial foray into the browser market was also a bit disappointing but that, too, is starting to change. When the Chrome browser came out, it was a bit faster than market leaders Internet Explorer and Firefox but not nearly as versatile because it lacked support for extensions that allow third parties to add functionality. However, Google recently released a beta version of Chrome that fixes that problem.

Last month Chrome overtook Apple’s Safari as the third-place browser behind Internet Explorer and Firefox, according to Net Applications. As more extensions become available and more people download the newer version, I’m confident its market share will continue to grow.

The biggest difference between Apple and Google has to do with control. Apps for both the iPhone and iPad will be distributed through Apple and be vetted and approved by Apple before being made available to users. Google has a more open approach, allowing anyone to create an app for their phone or their computer operating system.

The democrat (small d) in me sides with Google. But the part of me that’s concerned about safety and security understands the advantages of having a company like Apple examine the applications for its devices.

Mostly I’m just glad to see these two talented and resourceful companies compete with each other and, of course, Microsoft, which was once thought to be a monopoly but is now struggling to compete with both Google and Apple.

This post is adapted from a column by Larry Magid that appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

Indeed, based on what I saw at the Wall Street Journal‘s D: All Things Digital conference in Carlsbad last week, there is still plenty of tread on Microsoft’s tires.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was one of the speaker’s at D, where he responded to questions from conference co-host and Wall Street Journal Personal Technology columnist Walt Mossberg. Although upbeat on Microsoft, Ballmer was not optimistic about a quick economic turnaround, saying “to think that things would be back in a year seems naive to me.” He went on to say that it could be a very long recovery and “maybe today is normal and yesterday was a blooper.”

He also said that Microsoft has flattened out its research and development spending. It’s not that it has stopped investing in new products; it’s just that it is no longer continuing to increase the level of spending at a steady rate.

Still, the company has been productive in recent months. For one thing, it’s only a few months away from releasing Windows 7, which Ballmer confirmed should be ready in time for the holidays.

I’ve been testing Windows 7 for months and, based on my experience, it’s the best and most stable operating system Microsoft has ever created. My PC that runs a Windows 7 “release candidate” still occasionally slows down and even crashes but far less often than with Vista or XP.

And the user interface — especially the ability to peer into the windows of running programs by clicking on their icon on the task bar — makes using Windows a lot easier.

But the big news at D was about search. Ballmer officially unveiled the company’s new search engine, which it is calling Bing. Bing.com will go live on June 3, but if you go to the site now, you’ll see a preview video. Before unveiling Bing, Ballmer showed a video about all the different brands that Microsoft has applied to its search efforts, including MSN Search and Live Search. Ballmer thinks that Bing is more likely to resonate with users. “Brand doesn’t substitute for innovation, but innovation doesn’t substitute for a brand consumers can get their mind around,” he said.

It would be a gross exaggeration to call Bing a Google killer, but that’s OK. Google doesn’t have to die for Microsoft to succeed in search. Besides, Ballmer made it very clear that he doesn’t expect Bing to overtake Google in the foreseeable future. Microsoft, if anything, is persistent. It took three tries before Microsoft Word was worthy of becoming the dominant word processing program, and it wasn’t until version 3.0 that Windows began to get serious traction.

To differentiate itself from Google, Bing is not only visually more attractive, it’s also more informative. Functioning as what Microsoft is calling a “decision engine,” rather than simply linking you to sites, Bing searches often end with information directly from Bing. For example, if you type in the name of a city you get local weather, hotel prices and other information without having to click anywhere. And, depending on the content licensing rules of sites that Bing draws from, it can sometimes display content directly — from Wikipedia for example — without the user having to click through. It even has a built-in shopping engine that, when you search for a product, shows you images, offerings from multiple merchants as well as product information, customer reviews and expert reviews.

The search engine also helps you find travel deals and lets you book travel without having to leave the site. I’m not sure how well it works, but it includes a “price predictor” that helps determine if the price of the ticket you’re thinking of buying is likely to go up or down.

Despite Google’s current dominance, search doesn’t have to be a winner-takes-all business. If Microsoft can increase its market share gradually over time, it stands to take in billions in additional revenue. In the meantime, Google isn’t standing still. Just as Ballmer was in Carlsbad talking about Microsoft’s foray into search, Google executives were in San Francisco talking about how they are beefing up their offerings, including some that will compete head-on with Microsoft’s core applications.

The economy may be in a recession, but tech isn’t in a slowdown. Thanks to startups and innovative thinking from big companies like Google and Microsoft, 2009 might be remembered as a banner year for innovation.

I’m starting to worry Google will become the world’s SPOF — that’s short for “single point of failure.” I also worry about the company’s power to determine whether certain other businesses make money.

A SPOF is a component in a system that — if it fails — brings down everything with it. We generally think of a SPOF as a point in a discrete system like a computer or a house. If the CPU or the hard drive in your computer fails, the entire machine is unusable. If the circuit breaker or fuse box in your house goes down, so do all the electrical appliances.

Mission-critical operations try to avoid SPOFs. That’s why commercial airliners always have at least two engines and two or three ways to perform many critical tasks, such as bringing down the landing gear. It’s why radio and TV stations and hospitals have backup power sources and why smart computer users back up their data.

I’m told that Google has plenty of redundancy within its own infrastructure so that, when a server or group of servers goes down, customers aren’t usually inconvenienced. But sometimes — such as happened Thursday — lots of people are affected. On its blog, Google explained that a system glitch caused it to route Web traffic via Asia, causing about 14 percent of users to experience slow services or even interruptions. The outage reportedly affected Google Search, caused Google News to slow to a crawl and created problems with YouTube, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Reader and Google Analytics.

As you’d expect, a lot of details about the outage came via Twitter, through which people around the world immediately shared their experiences as Google services went down and back up. Twitter’s search term for this particular outage is googlefail.

I wasn’t personally affected by this outage, but as a Gmail and Google Calendar user, I have been unable for brief periods of time to gain access to my messages and schedule. That raises an important question: Is Google too big to fail?

We lately have applied the “too big to fail” argument to banks, automakers and a few other big businesses whose failure would have an enormous economic impact on thousands or millions of people. But when it comes to reach, companies like General Motors, AIG and Citibank are tiny compared with Google, which touches the lives of hundreds of millions of people in every part of the world.

A Google failure — even a temporary one — doesn’t just inconvenience people. It can cost them money. In addition to the potential financial loss and waste of time when businesses and professionals are not able to get e-mail or check their calendar, there is a large cadre of businesses and entrepreneurs that depend on Google advertising revenue.

Any Web site that participates in the Google AdSense program — and there are a lot of them — stands to lose money if Google’s ad servers go down. Businesses that buy ads will lose sales, and the Web sites that carry those ads will temporary lose that advertising revenue.

And it’s not just outages that people worry about. Google has software that ranks Web sites based on their importance. Page rank and other factors determine where a site shows up in a Google search. The higher your site is in the results, the more visitors you’ll get, which — if you’re an e-commerce site — translates into more sales. If you use display advertising, it means more hits and therefore more ad revenue.

The algorithms that determine how a site is ranked are, of course, controlled by Google, and when Google tweaks those algorithms, there are winners and losers.

Google has also been known to punish Web sites for violating its policies. The company has a “webmaster guidelines” page where it outlines “some of the illicit practices that may lead to a site being removed entirely from the Google index or otherwise penalized.” Google says that “if a site has been penalized, it may no longer show up in results on Google.com or on any of Google’s partner sites.”

Being penalized by Google could have a bigger financial impact on a small business than a fine imposed by a court or regulatory body for violating a federal or state law. But our legal system operates with some transparency and offers a chance to confront your accuser and put up a defense. Google does have a place where you can “submit your site for reconsideration,” but that’s not exactly the same level of protection that you would get if you were accused of breaking a real law.

This posting originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

The service, a relaunch of GrandCentral, which Google bought in 2007, allows you to choose a local number, which will simultaneously ring up to six phones such as your cell phone, home phone, office phone, and the phone at that vacation home that most of us can only dream about.

In addition to forwarding your calls, it also takes voice messages that you can listen to on the Web, from a phone, or read, thanks to a new feature that transcribes voice messages and sends them as e-mail and text messages.

If you have multiple phones, having a single number to reach them all can make you and your callers’ lives a bit easier, and it can save space on your business card by not having to list separate numbers. The concept is simple: people are trying to reach you–not one of your phones–and Google Voice lets you decide how to route the calls.

The simultaneous ring feature can also be used by groups. Team HOPE, a support network for families of missing children, gives callers a GrandCentral number that rings the phones of several staff members to ensure that calls are always answered.

I’ve been using a very similar “simulring” feature on Vonage for several years and like the fact that I get to control where my calls are forwarded. Both Google and Vonage let you configure forwarding from the Web, but Google also allows you to assign a temporary forwarding number directly from the phone. That could come in handy, if you suddenly find your cell phone out of range but have access to another number where you can be reached.

The call-recording feature is very cool. At any time during an incoming call, you can press 4 to start the recorder and 4 again to stop it. That can be handy if you’re driving and someone is about to give you a phone number, address, or something else that you can’t write down.

The recording feature can also be used by podcasters to record phone calls that can be exported as MP3 files. And yes, there is an announcement to inform the other party that you’re recording the call.

You also get free conference calls. Up to four people can dial your phone number and can be patched into the call.

Cheap international calls
People who make occasional international calls from a cell phone will get incredible savings, compared to what the carriers charge. Using Google Voice to call a landline in London, for example, costs 2 cents a minute, compared to the whopping $1.49 that Verizon Wireless and AT&T charge, if you don’t purchase an international calling plan.

Even with a calling plan, the carrier rates, though much cheaper, are still higher than what Google charges. Making calls could be easier. You dial your Google number, press 2, and then punch in 011 plus the country code and phone number.

Bugs and rough edges
I have encountered a few annoying bugs in my day 1 experience with the service. For one, I’m not able to delete voice mail from my cell phone, despite following the instructions to press 7 to “archive” messages. Every time I call my voice mail, those messages are still there, as if they were new. Although the voice mail transcription service works, the message isn’t always delivered promptly. Sometimes it arrives in a few minutes, but at other times, it’s taken up to 20 minutes.

Although not a bug and not Google’s fault, it’s unfortunate that you can’t use your Google number as your outgoing caller ID when you dial directly from a cell phone. Although there are ways to spoof that, for security reasons, phone companies don’t allow it.

The problem is that people are in the habit of you calling back on your caller ID, which makes it harder to train them to dial your Google number. Your Google caller ID will show up correctly, however, if you initiate the call from your Google Voice Web page or if you dial your own Google number and then press 2 to dial out and type in the number. This process, I suspect, is more of a hassle than it’s worth.

There also isn’t yet a way to transfer an existing phone number to Google, so you’re stuck having to give out the new Google number. The service works only with U.S. phone numbers; you can’t forward calls overseas.

Because it’s an incoming service only, you can’t record outbound calls, and you can’t use Google Voice to add people to a call. They have to call you.

The service is currently available only to people who had previously signed up for GrandCentral. Google hasn’t announced when others can sign up.

Still, despite some flaws and limitations, this could turn out to be one of Google’s most beloved services. Being able to read your voice mail and having one number that rings all your phones is terrific, especially at the amazingly low price of free.

(This post has been updated to note that your Google caller ID will display correctly if you dial via the service’s Web site or use the service’s dial-out feature.)

Listen to Larry’s interview with Craig Walker, Google Voice guru and co-founder of GrandCentral

Listen now: Download today’s podcast

If your family celebrates Christmas, you can track Santa’s global progress on Christmas Eve, thanks to Web 2.0!

You can get minute-by-minute reports on Twitter’s noradsanta feed.  As I write, Santa was just spotted in Kango, Gabon.  Earlier, I watched as he, his reindeer and sleigh visited Southeast Asia, and threaded their way through the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur.  (Rudolph’s apparently quite a hotdog.)

You can also follow Santa on SantaCam video thanks to a partnership between NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) and Google.  NORAD has been tracking Santa every Christmas Eve since 1955.  You can see his global progress and flight path here.

I learned about Santa’s Twitter feed and the SantaCam from the Toronto Globe and Mail in an article that describes how NORAD began tracking Santa and provides more details about the new Web 2.0 tracking tools.  I love that  “kids can follow along in seven languages through the website or on a smart phone by using Google Maps.”I just checked the Twitter feed and since I began writing, Santa has reached Berlin, Germany!

Happy whatever holidays to every last one of you!

The phone, which is manufactured by Taiwan-based HTC Corporation, will be available from T-Mobile starting Oct. 22 for $179, with a two year contract.

Like the Apple iPhone, it features a touch screen (3.2 inch) to easily launch applications but there are also five dedicated buttons, including very handy menu and home buttons, plus a trackball.

If you want to make a phone call while holding it in portrait mode you can bring up an onscreen dial-pad, but if you want to enter text – perhaps to respond to an email or access a web page, you have to turn the phone on its side and slide out the physical QWERTY keyboard.

I like having a physical keyboard – the lack of one is my major complaint about the iPhone. The keyboard is okay, but I prefer the extra travel you get when pressing keys on the Blackberry Curve. Without a backlight, the G1 keys are hard to see in the dark.

When you slide out the keyboard, the phone goes from portrait to landscape mode but it doesn’t do that just by moving the phone.

I’m surprised and disappointed that it doesn’t give you the option of also bringing up an onscreen keyboard for typing text. Seems to me they could have offered that along with the physical keyboard but perhaps that will be corrected with a software update or a third party application.

And therein lies the real promise behind this phone. Like the iPhone, there is an icon on the main screen that brings you to an application store (it’s called the “Market”) where you can download applications provided by independent developers.

So far there are only about 40 such applications, compared to thousands for the iPhone, but if Google is successful in evangelizing Android, it’s safe to assume that a lot more applications will be forthcoming.

Unlike Apple, Google and the cell phone carriers have said that they will permit virtually any application – even if it competes with the economic interest of those companies. For example, there is already an application called iSkoop that lets you make free or inexpensive international and domestic calls using Skype. Warning to merchants – my favorite application lets you use the phone’s camera to “scan” a product’s bar code to look up reviews and comparative prices.

The G1 comes with only one gigabyte of memory compared to eight gigabytes for the $199 iPhone or 16 GB for Apple’s $299 version. However, the G1′s memory is on a removable microSD card, making it very easy and reasonably affordable to expand the memory up to 8 gigabytes now and, probably, 16 or more in the future. An 8 GB card can be purchased for about $25.

As you might expect, the G1 comes with a dedicated Gmail and Google calendar application where your mail and calendar are always in synch with Google’s web-based applications. This can be extremely convenient if you regularly use Gmail and Google calendar on your PC or Mac, but possibly a deal-breaker if you’re not a Gmail or Google Calendar user.

There is another email application that works with other POP3 and IMAP email accounts but, so far, not Microsoft Exchange mail which is used by many companies.

Unlike every other smart phone I’ve used, the G1 doesn’t come with software to synchronize your calendar or address book with a PC or Mac, which could be a big problem for many people but not for those who already use Gmail or Google Calendar. Microsoft Outlook users can get their data into the G1 by first using free PC software to synch with Google’s web applications.

The phone does come with a USB cable to transfer music or photos between the phone and a PC or Mac. Unlike Apple products, it uses the same standard Mini-USB connector as the Blackberry and many digital cameras. You can also charge the device from a computer’s USB port.

The interface is pretty intuitive. You get a relatively sparse home screen but you can reveal all of the applications by tapping or dragging a tab on the screen. There are actually three main screens that you move between by flicking in an iPhone like gesture. You can bring up a menu to add any application or icon to any screen by holding down your finger for a few seconds. It’s not intuitive but it’s easy to use once you figure it out. Like the BlackBerry, but unlike the iPhone, you can make a call by just typing the person’s name from the home screen.

The G1 has the second best web browser I’ve seen on a phone – almost as good as the iPhone’s. The G1′s browser does let you use your finger to move about the screen and you can zoom in or out by taping on a plus or minus icon. That’s not bad, but not as good as using two fingers to pinch and zoom or contract an image on the iPhone. When you’re in the browser you can press the menu to bring up screens to enter a URL, search, set a bookmark or switch to a new browser window. This is a pretty versatile browser for a hand held device.

There is also an Instant Message program that supports AIM, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo Messenger.

The phone does have GPS and Google Maps. You don’t get turn-by-turn directions but I was able to easily use the map application to help me find an address on a recent car trip. You can view the map from street or satellite view.

The G1 does have a music player and it comes with a stereo headset that connects to the USB port. Unlike the iPhone and the consumer oriented BlackBerries, there isn’t a standard audio jack. I think that’s a real shame especially for people who like to use higher-end headphones, plug music players into a car stereo or, like me, tend to lose headsets.

I’m told that an optional adapter is available but that’s one more thing to buy and possibly lose. Although it supports Bluetooth headsets for talking on the phone, it doesn’t support stereo Bluetooth music headphones.

In addition to transferring music from a computer, you can purchase songs via the Amazon MP3 store. The songs are unencrypted and you can copy them from the G1 to a PC or Mac by connecting the two devices with a USB cable and dragging the file as if between disk drives. There is no synch program like iTunes.

If you’re a YouTube fan, you have plenty to watch but that’s it when it comes to video. That’s a glaring omission which, I hope, will be remedied by third party developers.

The G1 phone works on T-Mobile’s high-speed G3 network as well as its slower Edge network. I found G3 coverage in most, but not all, parts of the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas where I tested the phone and I was pleased to be able to get coverage, albeit a bit slower, at several car stops between the two cities on U.S. 101 and Interstate 5.

Depending on use, the battery typically gave me between about 3 and 4.5 hours of use but, unlike the iPhone, the battery is removable so heavy users can bring along a spare.

T-Mobile’s $25 data plan includes unlimited email, web access, 400 text messages and Google Talk access. For $10 more you get unlimited text messages and instant messages. Both plans give you access to T-Mobile WiFi hotspots. You’re also required to have voice plan starting at $30 a month.

Bottom line: The G1 is an excellent phone but lacks a bit of the fit and finish of the iPhone. It’s easy to use but not as intuitive as the iPhone. I like it a lot better than any Windows Mobile phone and – for consumers – it competes well against the BlackBerry but doesn’t bury it. It’s definitely not ready for corporate use.

Of course, this is only the first of the Android phones. Google’s Open Handset Alliance includes many carriers, including Sprint and cell phone makers LG, Samsung and Motorola. Over time we’ll see a lot of choices including phones with different form factors than the G1 as well as new applications.

Still, if you want to be among the first to play with Google’s entry into the phone application market, the G1 will serve you well.

Street view of home with bedroom window

As if the TV series “To Catch a Predator” wasn’t enough paranoia, now there’s a campaign to protect our children against predators who use Google Street View.

I admit, there may be some privacy concerns as a result of Google taking pictures of homes and businesses around the country but StopInternetPredators.org’s “campaign to highlight child safety concerns over Google’s ‘Street View’ strikes me as absurd. The organization, which is headed by Stacie D. Rumenap, former Deputy Director for the American Conservative Union, argues that Google Street View “can be misused by child predators to target children.”

In a video that appears on the site, Rumenap says that it’s “frighteningly simple” for anyone “to find out detailed photographic information about you and your family.” The video and accompanying text make it seems as if Google Street View is a predator’s best friend for targeting children for abuse. Rumenap calls it “an entirely new threat to our families and children” that “makes it simple to map the most likely route your child walks to school… view entrances to community parks and even find the location of your family’s bedroom windows.” She wants people to “urge local leaders to ban Street View in your neighborhood until the technology is safeguarded.” She does, however, admit that “banning Street View might not safeguard our children 100% from child predators.”

I don’t know where to start with this. To begin with, Google Street View would be a very inefficient way for a predator to find a child victim. It would be much more effective to simply walk or drive around the neighborhood. It’s not as if you need the Internet to find parks, schools and homes where children live and play. There are schools, parks and homes with bedroom windows in just about every neighborhood.  And, statistically, the vast majority of predators know their targets anyway — in real life, not online.

Instead of banning Google Street View, maybe we should put up walls between streets and sidewalks so that predators can’t see children walking home from school. And while we’re at it, let’s ban public outdoor parks and recreation areas or at least find ways to hide the children playing there. Or just keep children away from churches, schools, scouting and other places where pedaphiles have been known to operate.

Second, it completely distorts the way predators operate – at least those who are “successful” in finding actual victims. There is plenty of research to show that trolling online for victims is not the way that predators typically find young people to exploit. In about 80% of child sexual abuse cases, the victims and the perpetrator know each other in the real world either through family ties, friendships, schools, youth groups and situations that bring kids and adults together.

Based on what we know from arrest records, survey research and other data, the actual danger of Internet predators, strangers harming victims that they find online has been greatly exaggerated and this campaign simply adds fuel to that fire. If a child is to be harmed online, it is much more likely because of bullying or harassment from a fellow young person, something inappropriate the child posts online or by taking extraordinary risks in a chat room or other public forum.

If anything, campaigns like this actually increase danger to children by alarming people unnecessarily and distracting us from dealing with real risks.

I’m not suggesting that Google Street View doesn’t bring up some privacy concerns. It’s probably a good idea for people to look up their own address just to make sure there’s nothing posted that could be embarrassing or a possible security threat. But finding a serious security risk is pretty unlikely. A Google spokesperson said that “if you are not comfortable with the imagery available on Street View, we have easily accessible tools for flagging sensitive imagery for review and removal.”

And, of course, it’s essential for parents to talk with their children about safety. Adults should study the child safety tips from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and remind kids to follow some basic guidelines like “Always check first with a parent, guardian, or trusted adult before going anywhere, accepting anything, or getting into a car with anyone,” “Do not go out alone. Always take a friend with when going places or playing outside” and “Say no if someone tries to touch you, or treats you in a way that makes you feel scared, uncomfortable, or confused. “ That, along with age appropriate parental supervision, is what will protect our kids – not going ballistic about the possible safety implications of every new piece of technology that comes our way.

(Disclosure: I serve as co-director of ConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from several Internet companies, including Google.)

© 2008 – Larry Magid