There I said it. I don’t want to live in Googleverse. But it feels somewhat inevitable.
Google is a scarily powerful and omnipresent phenomenon. What started out as a handy search tool on this platform we call the internet, is rapidly taking over the world.
Let’s just stop for a second and look at the facts. Let’s be under no illusion. Google aren’t here to help us out of the good of their hearts. Obviously, I hear you cry, they are a business. Well, fair enough. I like business.
What I don’t like are all encompassing juggernauts that are there solely to mine data from us.
Google are clever. Normally, if any business asked you to sign over your soul for access to their platform, you’d say no, and politely walk away. But Google has a way with words that has got us all tripping over ourselves to sign up and tell them everything, without so much as a raised word or a twisted arm.
They’ve even got agents on the ground and out in the field now. (google glass wearers) These are people so willing to give their personal info up and capture other things for Big G to use, they’ll happily pay thousands of pounds for the privilege.
There was something reported about some police forces eventually having google glass to capture evidence etc. So now you have that friendly little search engine linked up to the long arm of the law and everyone’s data, and movements.
Then there are the satellites that Google hire, circling the earth and picking up and tracking a bit more info as they go. I believe there are hopes to actually get their own satellites up there (though I don’t know if I have made that up or not so don’t quote me).
Not forgetting the drones and balloons patrolling the lower areas of the atmosphere.
And the final shazam, a google device in the hands of every person in the connected and modern world. Google collects snippets from your phone, from your tablet, from your pc, from your laptop…..
It knows everything about you from what time you get up, to your mood through the day, your likes and dislikes. Everything. Even the stuff you don’t tell it directly, it can read between the lines!
Perhaps George Orwell was onto something way ahead of his time when he talked about Big Brother in Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Whatever, I don’t particularly want to live in a Googleverse. Do you?
This is post 65 of 100 blogs in 100 days.
Ha, funny you made this post! I’ve got one in the pipeline called “The Power of Google” coming from a slightly different angle but also expressing concern.