Google Pulls Kill Switch

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2381604,00.asp       begin quote from address to left:
Over the weekend Google deployed its so-called "kill switch" against the Android malware that had infected possibly thousands of phones. Google's action remote-wipes any of the identified malware from any Android phone and reinforces protections against subsequent infection. "Kill switch" is an apt, if unfortunate, description of the procedure, as the same term has been recently used to describe what the Egyptian and Libyan governments have done to Internet access in their countries.
Is it just me or should we all feel slightly creeped out by Google's move? Certainly, the company had to act, and act swiftly, which it did. Not only did it remove the malicious apps almost the minute it heard about them, but it deployed a fix within days. Considering the number of devices and versions of Android that need to be addressed, that's impressive. But going into my phone and erasing software—no matter how bad it may be—strikes me as a vaguely Orwellian thing to do.
Maybe I'm being needlessly concerned here (and I feel a bit hypocritical after just writing about the benefits of Facebook's openness). If there any offending apps from your phone, Google was nice enough to leave a note about what they erased and why they erased it. And I'm sure Google's on solid legal ground here: although no one who isn't a lawyer has probably ever read any of those Terms of Service agreements we all click "Agree" on with abandon, Google no doubt reserves the right to perform acts like this whenever it has reason to.end quote.

Like the author above the right of Google to go inside your technology and remove something that gives Google a bad name isn't surprising. The surprising thing is that it has to.

Also, since my experience with computer hardware and software goes back to about 1965, when companies tell me a about the security of the internet in general I have to laugh. First of all, you have literally thousands of companies writing software and finding ways to protect their rights. Then within those companies you probably have tens of thousands of programmers putting back doors into their programs that they likely never tell their companies about. Then people who are the (billions now worldwide) users wonder why they have various problems. So the next time someone says, "Please run your taxes through the internet", Or "Let us tell you how your credit rating is doing over the internet", or any other personal information that you don't want out and about is asked for over the internet, just think about Google pulling the kill switch times about 50,000. Then imagine at least a 1000 or more of these people do not have your best interests in mind. Now I'm not talking about companies here at all, I'm talking about rogue programmers sometimes called hackers which are now everywhere worldwide. And their interests can be as broad as the world and so can their ethics.