MisterWebNet

What a busy day Thursday turned out to be for Google. Not only did they launch a dictionary service and a translated web search service, Google also announced a new service that resolves DNS names. Maybe they were expecting that one to go unnoticed.

The dictionary service is easy to use (and handy I'm loathe to admit). Simply click on 'definition' in the top right corner after searching and get a list of meansing, related words, mini-thesaurus and so on.

The translated web search is useful is you are German and seeking information on an item that probably appears in a different language. For instance, Greek history might be dealt with more indepth in Greek. Google will translate it's results to give you an overview of what's going on in it's greek search.

Now for the DNS. Oh dear. At best it's more Google encroachment the internet. Google's vision for google everywhere does not involve open DNS  -the system you use now to get from where you are, to where a page on a website is located. Google sees the internet not so much as the internet, but as the googlenet. There might not be any immediate benefit to Google in launching it's own DNS system, but consider this. If there was no benefit to Google, why would they do it in the first place? Allow me.

Using Google DNS, allows google to control further the content on the web, what is indexed, how it is indexed and even if it's not indexed, the ability to switch your website on and off at will. Consider this. You make a bad blog post about Google. Google bot see it. It sends a report to it's DNS server, and wham, your website is no longer available on the DNS system - it's effectively blocked. Your blog post is happily available on the Open DNS system.

Okay, thats an extreme example (Is it?!). But it's very factual. If Google controls the DNS then it controls what sites can be seen/found. For a private, profit driven company, that is an extremely bad move. Do not, on your granny's life, change your dns settings on your browser to use Google DNS. The future depends on it Scotty.