Art Of Money

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1. Stops Sending Your Site Traffic

Some algorithm tweaker could have a bad hair day and introduce a variable which drops your site out of sight. No traffic for you.

Sorry, if you rely primarily on search engine traffic from Google to pay your bills, get a job.

2. Stealing Information from Your Gmail Account

Do you have any sensitive information in your Gmail account? I do.

For example, what if a rogue Google employee grabs it and transfers your domain name to his account; verifying and then deleting the confirmation emails from inside your Gmail account - he knows your time zone, so he can do it all while you are sleeping.

3. Embarrass The Hell Out of You

Have you seen the new feature of Google Maps called Streetview. Some folks are not to pleased about being featured in these pictures.

4. Ban Your AdSense Account

Google can ban an AdSense account for suspicion of click fraud and you’ll see quite a few accounts from seemingly honest people who have been banned without any clear indication or how, or any knowledge of fraudulent activity.

The worst part about these bans is that they don’t pay out any monies owing once your site has been banned. So if they give you the boot on the 20th of the June, you could be out all of your earnings from May 1st onwards. If you are spending big on AdWords and counting on the earnings from AdSense to pay for it, you could be facing bankruptcy.

5. Kill Your Investment Portfolio

Investors have a particularly quick trigger finger when it comes to Internet businesses.

If Google’s image ever develops a bit of tarnish, and the share price plummets, your portfolio could take a hit. It’s a long drop from $500 a share, but Grandma always said, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

6. Make it Impossible for You To Get Hired

One of the most valuable currencies in the brave new online world are the search engine results attached to your name. Imagine if someone influential wrote a scathing article about you that came up prominently whenever someone searched for your name in Google?

You know every employer these days Googles every applicant they are considering offering a job. What do you think your chances of getting hired would be, if someone was dissing you on the top of the results?

7. Delete Your Email Account or All Your Google Docs

As more and more people get the benefits of centralized (as opposed to being attached to your specific computer or network) email and document management, they are turning to Google’s Gmail and Docs services. Since I work with people all over the world I use them both a lot.

What there was a meltdown at Google and your account got deleted? Think it couldn’t happen, think again.

Is Google Evil?

It isn’t my intention with this story to trash Google. It is actually mind blowing to think of the number of valuable services they provide in my business and personal life on a daily basis.

The purpose of this story is as a bit of a wake up call to myself to realize that these risks need to be addressed and minimized where possible. Most of the 7 ways have a pretty straight forward way to either eliminate or minimize or fix any problems that could happen.