Do you use Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, or the endless list of Google services for your business?

How many of them are “free”?

Now, define “free” for me.

For YEARS I have been telling my clients, friends, family…even strangers who start up conversations with me about the Internet [while I am wolfing down a Panera Fuji Apple Salad and doing my online College classwork] that there is NOTHING FREE on the Internet.

Immediately, they disagree and come back with an entire list of free services, as I did above.  Sometimes I smile and continue to eat and work…other times I explain what they give up for those “freebies”….and sometimes – if they are REALLY interested – I tell them the true cost of those freebies (data centers, datalines, staff, legal review, coders, testers, etc).

Anything you get for FREE has a price.  The price tag for the services that I listed above is YOU.  You are the price tag.  YOU are their target for behavioral marketing, search, and other services those listed businesses actually sell.

I believe we have all gotten far too used to the “freebies” on the web, we have all become “comfortably numb” (thanks Pink Floyd) to their real cost, and then when someone takes away your “assumed right” to privacy, you scream.

It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee – either pay for a similar service where you have the right to your privacy, or assume YOU are the price for free use of their service.  Those, really, are your choices.

While Google already provides secure (SSL) socket layer to it’s gMail and Google Docs, today they have launched a beta secure search engine.

Why secure search? Lots of reasons…a good example would be:
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Interlopers can see what you do by the information you send out of your computer. [Interlopers can mean a person or a bot monitoring traffic on any network]. Standard web activity is not encrypted data. So, if you type in “Iron Man 2″ in a search box, if your provider has bots monitoring the traffic on your network, or if you have some 14 year old who thinks it’s cool to monitor your unsecured Wi-Fi network traffic, then they see you are doing a search for “Iron Man 2″.

By using an SSL (https://) for Google Search – just like the banks and other websites do, they now would see **** *** * instead.
It evolves privacy to the search level, making it harder for someone with bad intentions to act on them – which is nice. While t first you just may not see the importance f it, Just think of examples you probably wouldn’t want others to see, then you “get” the reason for this move on Google’s part.

A good example would be a small business owner doing research on a business idea they have. If someone or something is monitoring your search and Internet use, it’s not a long shot to think they could figure out what you are doing – especially if they are monitoring your email as well….yes, email is also NOT FULLY encrypted and is never to be a trusted environment for ANY sensitive information unless you purchase a highly encrypted email service [which usually requires that the end recipient have a digital ID to open it].

I applaud Google for this extension of security – and privacy. It’s a step in the right direction.  In my opinion, it is going to be a great tool for them to go head to head with Facebook – who at this writing, is busy spreading our information all over the Internet without our permission and making it increasingly more difficult for those of us wanting privacy to block their efforts.

As Google brings this live, simply type in:  https://www.google.com to use it.  (https) being the important part to make sure it’s secure.