The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry)
In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission--"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible"--and its...
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In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission--"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible"--and its much-quoted motto, "Don't be Evil." In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google--and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property and the much-touted Google Book Search. He assesses Google's global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the "evil" it pledged to avoid.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN:
9780520258822 (0520258827)
Publish date: March 8th 2011
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages no: 280
Edition language: English
Category:
Non Fiction,
History,
Academic,
Computer Science,
Science,
Technology,
Computers,
Internet,
Read For School,
Adult,
Business,
Culture,
Sociology,
Society
This gets a bonus ★ for raising some interesting questions occasionally, but the delivery is terrible. The comparison of Google's rise to power with that of Julius Caesar is an evocative one, though underdeveloped. Similarly, the thesis that by doing nothing (or, too little too late) we allowed car ...
Interesting, provocative, and often quite disturbing. The author does a particularly fine job diuscussing issues of copyright, intellectual property, and privacy clearly and concisely.
"We must build the sort of online ecosystem that can benefit the whole world over the long term, not one that serves the short-term interests of one powerful company, no matter how brilliant.""The Google Books plan is a perfect example of public failure." If they are allowed to continue, Google will...