I use Google everyday, and many of its services are invaluable for my work. But we must be vigilant! We cannot allow Google to slowly pull the wool over our heads with innovation![1]

The Google Evil Meter is a fun and silly, yet slightly meaningful, experiment in Twitter data mining and HTML5. Every 15 minutes or so, the GEM trawls the Twitter search API with a few secret terms (if the GEM were a hamburger, this would be the secret sauce!) and then stores all the tweets it finds in a database. During the trawling, it also flags each tweet as either good or evil. Based on these tweets, we get a number! The GEM has been keeping track of Google’s current level of evil since May 30, 2009.

If you’re wondering why nothing is showing up, click one of the CHECK toggle switches!

[1] Ok, end the crazy, but keep in mind: Google has all (or at least much of) the information created by the human race. It’s only a matter of time before one if its data centers becomes sentient!