This is a must-read story. It wraps itself around the potential politics of Google deftly. I hope Cory writes sequals.
Radar Online : Cory Doctorow imagines a world in which Google is evil
... "Tell me about your hobbies. Are you into model rocketry?"
"What?"
"Model rocketry."
"No," Greg said, "No, I'm not." He sensed where this was going.
The man made a note, did some clicking. "You see, I ask because I see a heavy spike in ads for rocketry supplies showing up alongside your search results and Google mail."
Greg felt a spasm in his guts. "You're looking at my searches and e-mail?" He hadn't touched a keyboard in a month, but he knew what he put into that search bar was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink.
"Sir, calm down, please. No, I'm not looking at your searches," the man said in a mocking whine. "That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching. I have a brochure explaining it. I'll give it to you when we're through here."
"But the ads don't mean anything," Greg sputtered. "I get ads for Ann Coulter ring tones whenever I get e-mail from my friend in Coulter, Iowa!"
The man nodded. "I understand, sir. And that's just why I'm here talking to you. Why do you suppose model rocket ads show up so frequently?"
Greg racked his brain. "Okay, just do this. Search for 'coffee fanatics.'" He'd been very active in the group, helping them build out the site for their coffee-of-the-month subscription service. The blend they were going to launch with was called Jet Fuel. "Jet Fuel" and "Launch"—that would probably make Google barf up some model rocket ads.
They were in the home stretch when the carved man found the Halloween photos. They were buried three screens deep in the search results for "Greg Lupinski."
"It was a Gulf War–themed party," he said. "In the Castro."
"And you're dressed as...?"
"A suicide bomber," he replied sheepishly. Just saying the words made him wince.
"Come with me, Mr. Lupinski," the man said.
....
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Comments (2)
Hello Dr. Vaidhyanathan:
I came across your blog today via The Chronicle’s The Wired Campus newsletter. I think the book is an important idea. I am currently working on my last year of doctoral coursework (European Graduate School) and continuing to piece together what will be my dissertation titled "Electromania: Observations from Inside a Media-Rich Culture: Jack Kerouac to the Present". I am working from a blog which I built two years ago. The posts on the blog are essencially the notes for the manuscript (with much more work to be done). The word "Google" comes up multiple times across the blog, which I thought you would be interested to see.
Blog URL: http://www.radio-qmx.org/blog-cast/
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Gregory O'Toole, M.A.
Ph.D. student - Media Philosophy
European Graduate School
University of Denver
gotoole@du.edu
www.gregory-otoole.com
Rather late to this game. Doctorow is
hardly visionary even if inventive. Kafka beat him there years ago. My experience has been that one should never under-estimate the tendency of bureaucrats (in or out of govern- ment)to act in over-broad, ham-fisted ways--even when there is no malice of forethought involved. As Lilly Tomlin once said: "If you wake bolt-upright in the middle of the night thinking you've become overly paranoid and cynical, relax, go back to sleep; you can never over-match the real world."
Of perhaps greater interest is the daily trade-offs people make between convenience and security and their apparently unthinking willingness to provide all sorts of information to qualify for a store discount card which will then provide even more private information.
The most disturbing psychological aspect of the publics' atitude is the fact that they rail against government-sponsored information gathering where there is at least an indirect link (however faint) to the responsible bureaucrat through their elected representatives, yet they seem un-bothered by allowing private entities (such as GOOGLE, the owners of which have known political & ideological views) costless access , and which are responsible to no one except at great cost through litiga- tion or lobbying through government for legislative change--which, in effect, means the average citizen is without practical recourse for breaches of privacy--be they acci- dental or malicious.