Sunday, May 12, 2013

Campfire Horror Stories: The Power of Google


            Independence is a word that every American holds dear to their heart. Siva Vaidhyanahan brings up the alarming fact that we are no longer independent, but dependent on Google.  Google has the search engine market cornered and is not going to stop there.  In The Googlization of Everything Vaidhyanahan speaks to the dangers of this dependence.  Google collects a vast bank of information, but who decides what information is “vital”.  Google has the potential to create a 1984-eske world that should alarm everyone, not just Siva Vaidhyanahan.
            Daniel Tsadok advocates Vaidhyanahan’s statement in his weblog. While Google Chrome is an amazing invention; its innovation is only matched by its danger.  He speaks how Google Chrome merges the search process with the URL and while this is impressive, it is also very dangerous “Sounds great, and fairly innocuous.  Except, as more people rely on Google to navigate the web, Google gains more control over where people end up”.  Google is able to make a website vanish with a click of a mouse.  Tsadok is not worried about the near future but Google’s dominance down the line. 
            Tsadok and Vaidhyanahan clearly agree that Google is dangerous.  Tsadok gives examples of how the dependence could give Google control over documents, calendar, email, phone service and even health records.  The Vaidhyanahan reading along with the Tsadok weblog paints a horrific picture for the future.  Google can gain dictatorship like power over the technology market, which is scary in the tech-based world we live in today.

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