The DeGoogle movement (also called the de-Google movement) is a grassroots campaign that has spawned as privacy advocates urge users to stop using Google products entirely due to growing privacy concerns regarding the company.[1][2]
Background
As the growing market share of the internet giant creates monopolistic power for the company in digital spaces, increasing numbers of journalists and individuals have noted the difficulty to find alternatives to the company's products.
Some projects, such as ungoogled-chromium, /e/ and MicroG primarily distinguish themselves from Google-maintained products by their lessened dependence on the company's infrastructure.[3]
It can be seen as part of a broader opposition to big tech companies, sometimes referred to as "techlash".[4]
History
In 2008, Lee Hinman began making the move away from Google tools, 'in the interests of privacy', and blogged about his experience in a post entitled 'De-googling'.[5]
In 2010, publisher Jack Yan used the term as he removed himself from Google's services, citing privacy concerns.[6] Five days later, Kirk McElhearn wrote a piece about "dropping Google" in Macworld, citing privacy, deletions of Blogger blogs, and censorship.[7]
In 2013, John Koetsier of Venturebeat said Amazon's Kindle Fire Android-based tablet was "a de-Google-ized version of Android".[8]
In 2014, John Simpson of US News wrote about the "right to be forgotten" by Google and other search engines.[9]
Response
Huawei
In 2019, Huawei gave a refund to phone owners in the Philippines who were inhibited from using services provided by Google because so few alternatives exist that the absence of the company's products made normal internet use unfeasible.[19]
In 2020, Huawei launched Petal as an alternative to Google Search.[20]
Android distributions without Google software
In April 2019, GrapheneOS announced its release, a privacy-focused android distribution
See also
- Googlization
- Criticism of Google
- Big Tech
- Alt-tech
External links
- Framasoft's internet degoogling project: Degooglisons-internet
References
- Shona Ghosh. Thousands of Reddit users are trying to delete Google from their lives, but they're finding it impossible because Google is everywhere Business Insider, retrieved 2019-12-07^
- Julia Carrie Wong. Tech giants watch our every move online. Does that violate our human rights? The Guardian, 2019-11-23, retrieved 2019-12-07^
- Tim Anderson. When open source isn't enough: Fancy a de-Googled Chromium? How about some Microsoft-free VS Code?