Tag Archives: Google+

Found this via falconieri:

“The essential problem with Google is that it no longer considers itself primarily a search engine. Instead, Google believes it is an advertising company whose search results are mere fodder for commercial messages. This is the crime Google has committed. It is not in violating the principle of neutrality, an ideal that never existed in the history of knowledge organization. Google’s crime is against human culture. Google has stolen our common knowledge and commercialized the library. The long-term cultural consequences of this deplorable criminal act are unclear. But Google’s loathsome introduction of advertising into search results is travesty that must be investigated. Now is the time to begin a substantial inquiry into Google’s practices, not because they violate “search neutrality” but because they violate the human need for commercial-free learning.”

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Google’s Flaw (via azspot)

I feel like blaming Google isn’t fair.  We’ve commercialized WAY more than just knowledge. In fact, we’ve pretty much commercialized everything in our lives. 

There’s a great moment in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, where an astronaut is trapped outside a spaceship by a computer gone psychotic.  As the astronaut uses his forearm-mounted computer interface to try to work out a way back inside, we see, right next to the text display, a giant IBM logo.  This joke made the audience laugh out loud the last time I saw it in the theater.

When you brush your teeth, there’s likely a logo on your toothbrush.  When you drive down the street, not only are their billboards that you drive past, but there are about a half-dozen (or more) logos right inside your car—the car-brand, the brand of radio, your GPS’s brand’s logo, your cell phone, soda can/coffee cup, etc.

I remember in high school (way back in the last century) one of the school clubs ran a candy and soda shop in the cafeteria, where they’d buy candy and soda cheap and then mark it up to sell it to their fellow students.  I’ve since heard that some schools accept sponsorships from major corporations in exchange for ads placed around the school.  I recall one instance where competitors’ vending machines were banned from the school in favor of the sponsor’s.

Have you watched children’s TV lately?  I haven’t. I stopped years ago because (get ready for it) it was just too commercial for me.  The disgustingly unhealthy food they try to sell kids is shocking and the methods they use to do it, equally so. Loud music, “wacky” animation, and effective lies insist that Cocoa Puffs are part of a nutritious breakfast (they only say that because they have to admit that you shouldn’t try to survive on Cocoa Puffs alone).

Google isn’t doing anything we haven’t already done to ourselves.  They’re just doing it in a new way.  Does that make them evil?  Well, only if you consider ourselves evil for accepting so many other examples of commercialism into our lives and drawing benefits from it, as well.  You think Google should allow us to search without ads? How are they supposed to survive?  You benefit from their service, so they should benefit from you using their service.  Seems fair enough to me.

Personally, I think it’s about capitalism more than any one entity practicing it.  I mean, you can’t blame a tiger for feeding on prey.  The whole structure of capitalism demands exploitation—of workers and of customers. 

Right there is where the true evil lies, in my opinion.  Well, there and in the banks.

(And yes, the title of this post is my paraphrasing Obi-Wan’s “who’s the bigger fool” dialog from the original Star Wars movie.)