Note To Self: Do Not Block Google Analytics and Adsense
I’m doing what Bloggers shouldn’t. That is, checking your site statistics through Google Analytics and money earn’t through Adsense everyday. To help with my temptation of looking, I configured my router to blog the domains https://google.com/adsense and https://google.com/analytics.
After doing that, I go on the other addicting site Facebook and wonder, why isn’t this working. I try Google, Bing, Make Use Of – and none of them work. I check VOIP to see if the net is down, and I ping the above sites and everything is fine.
Then it hit me. I blocked Analytics and Adsense (yes I am forgetful, but it is late at night).
So I unblock the two URL’s, and bam, the internet is back to normal. This is because, my router blocks all websites that use the two domains that I blocked. Either websites use Adsense to display ads, or they use Analytics to track there site’s statistics.
To me, this has sparked an interesting realisation. Websites rely to much on Google. In a previous post, I posted a video of what Google Owns, or hopes to own in the future. I couldn’t believe it myself, that if I block two websites, almost every website on the internet does not work. It’s pretty amazing. So what happens if Google decides to implement destructive something on there servers? It will affect almost everyone as almost every single site uses Google for some reason. Not only this, what if the Government decides to block Google for what ever reason? Aren’t they thinking about that in China now? Not only can you not access Google, you won’t be able to access any sites that use Google for statistics or advertisements.
So what do you think? Should blocking two websites block the entire internet? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Although those sites (like so many others) utilize Analytics and Adsense on their pages, they are simply in its html when you load the page and are hosted on a different server. What I mean is, a site may have google [i]running on it[/i], but the site is [i]not dependent[/i] on it to run. So, in your scenario, if Google were to run something destructive or have a disagreeable policy that affects people who use adsense or analytics, people could simply decide to not use them.
The reason your router just blocked every site that had any [i]anything[/i] google on it in [i]any[/i] capacity is, I suspect, because it does not have the ability to selectively block some of what is on a site while presenting the rest of it. To do this, I suggest you look into some programs/firefox add-ons that actually can provide this functionality.
I do share your concerns regarding the growing presence of Google, however. I like the company and feel that I have benefited from its innovations, but do like to stay aware of its huge influence on society.
Hi Bill,
Thanks for your comment.
If Google does do something bad, then people will stop using them, however nothing is currently stopping them for putting javascript code in that will mess around with a users web browser for all sites that do use Google Analytics – and that’s pretty much everything.
I to like Google very much, they have changed this world so much and are very thankful. I just hope that they stick to their motto “Don’t Be Evil”
This video may interest you http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7yfV6RzE30