As college students, you’ve probably heard words like globalization, monopolization and maybe even McDonaldization thrown around in classes. Well, there’s a relatively new term that has been sweeping the online webisphere lately — one that’s rapidly growing in popularity. This term has some people excited, others scared and many indifferent.

Any guesses? You’ll probably recognize it when you see it. In fact, you might be surprised with how familiar you probably are with it already.

Still no guesses?

Today we’re talking about Googlization.

That’s right. Googlization — a pretty broad term that encapsulates everything in our lives that is Google. The Google search engine, iGoogle, Google Maps, Gmail, Google Images, Google News, Google Scholar, Google Book Search, Google Earth, and Google Street View. That’s a whole lot of Google.

But what can we say? Most of the stuff that Google comes out with turns out to be not only pretty impressive, but also incredibly useful in everyday life.

So what’s all the hype in the news about a recent squabble between a group of villagers from Broughton, England, and a Google Street View contractor?

According to a recent Time.com article, some residents of Broughton weren’t very happy when they learned that Google — who had only recently in England started to capture the familiar 360-degree image content to which most of us are accustomed — had chosen their town as next on the list for areas to which Google offers the street view capability.

So unhappy in fact that the residents went so far as to form a human chain to block the road, ultimately forcing the car mounted with the revolving camera to turn around.

According to a statement given to The Times of London newspaper, one resident simply stated, “My immediate reaction was anger: How dare anyone take a photograph of my home without my consent?”

Privacy is one of the biggest controversies that surround the virtual images offered by Google. Many object to the idea, fearful of what might be captured and who might be viewing it.

According to a section about privacy on the Google Maps Street View FAQ Web page, however, Google ensures that people need not worry, claiming, “We make it easy for users to ask to have photographs of themselves, their children, their cars or their houses completely removed from the product, even where the images have already been blurred.”

As far as legalities go, according to the same Time.com article, when asked about the claim that some make about the technology being intrusive, Google spokesman Anthony House said. “All of the information on Street View is the same as you would find on a property Web site or walking down the street yourself.”

We think that Google Street View, and most of the tools Google comes out with, are incredibly useful, as well as reliable, in everyday life. We believe that as technology changes, there are things that some people might not be as comfortable with as first, and like many other changes in life, might just take some getting used to. Ultimately, we welcome these new tools of usability and interactivity, and believe they are an exciting part of now and the future.