"'Who controls the past', ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'" ¹

...who controls the internet controls the present: who controls search controls the internet.

In part it's inevitable, the movement towards total loss of privacy. It is the opposite side of the coin for total transparent knowledge. Google is merely the embodiement of forces at work in society at large.

Money quote:

Interviewer: "How can you take fears away that this is a big brother company?"

....silent pause...

Marissa Mayer - VP Google Search: "I guess I just don't agree, I don't think of it that way."

This response is extraordinary in its naiveté. It is almost as if she didn't expect to be asked the question and possibly hadn't even thought about the question before...woah!

Motivation.

Marissa implies the motivation behind google's efforts to collect all the search data is non-predatory. Google only wants the data to improve the performance of their applications. I believe that is true

But what happens in the future...I mean they can say "do no evil", but then agenda's change: Google kow tows to the Chinese government and censors information., Google uses its clout to threaten politicians in North Carolina...I'm not painting Google as actually evil, I think those are business decisions, but I do think they can no longer live within their dream world of purity.

And if they are no longer the angels that they once portrayed themselves to be (if they ever were). And if they are merely a business entity trying to conquer a market and make a buck. And if their motivations are the same as the rest of the businesses in the world (which I believe they are). Then why should I trust them more than anybody else with all the information in the world?

I shouldn't.

Google Street View

As one example: Google Street View, it may show people doing private things in a very public way. [linky]. Google is within its rights to publish photos of people in public places, but what if they publish pictures of YOU that you don't want to be shown? Is that cool with you?

"They should build in privacy protection mechanisms as a matter of course," said Beth Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse in San Diego. "I don't see them proactively addressing the privacy implications of their various products, and they need to."

Because they're coming to your city...
[pics of google vehicles]

...and they ain't alone
[MS Live vs. Google]

Which brings me nicely back to the point about google merely being "the embodiement of forces at work in society at large." If Google didn't do it, someone else (Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo) would.

btw: Check out Microsoft's street side preview -it's Awesome! [Drive through the streets].

What do we do?

What can we do?

I mean to a large degree Google is an unstoppable force. Larger than most governments, curator of more information in one place than any entity before it, the consumer of more circuitry than any government or company before, the wellspring of geekdom from which all manner of widgits and tools spring as if unbidden from the hand of god.

Out of its maw comes interfaces into the information and out to the world the likes of which were not even dreamed of by futurists in decades past. No government is mandating this? They have money, they foist it on engineers and say GO FORTH AND CREATE. and it is done

.

But how do we put these multitude of genies back in the bottle?

We can't even if we wished to?

And with the rapid pace of change what does tomorrow hold in store for us?

meh.

Hang it...Google is cool

And yet the flip side is too damn compelling.
[google street view]

Maybe we are past this point. Maybe I am interjecting my 20th century sensibilities into a 21st century phenomena...

And yet who do we trust with THIS power?
[AI sooner than you think.]

Because I'm a little leary of anyone who can create that. Except of course me. You can trust me. I'll do no evil...right?

Ok, I'll bottle up that paranoia again and just enjoy all the Google doo-hickeys.

Full Google - Behind the Screen video [50 minutes] : [linky]

George Orwell, 1984 Part 1, Chapter 3, pg. 37

Virgin is using Flickr photographs without first contacting the people that took the photo.  They are getting free images to use as they please.

From all appearences Virgin did everything legally, if a bit ham-handedly. The pictures they used were up on Flickr under a Creative Commons License which allows broad usage guidelines. But they could have done better and leveraged the personal involvement of some end users...how about a free phone or even some shwag would have done wonders. Anything would have been better than just pinching some free pics.

At least one other company has done something like this in the past, Nikon: nikonstunninggallery. But they did it with user involvement and not to simply use Flickr as a free inventory of photos a la Virgin.  Smart of Nikon, less smart of Virgin.

Millenials

This flies right into the face of the millenial generation. The kids these days are unconcerned with putting their entire life out and up on the web. Here is an example of a company taking advantage of this free public content.

What other content types are available to use like this I wonder?

Will this change any attitudes of the millenials? I think not. They (and most everyone else too I might add) don't care and will just shrug this off as unimportant. In fact if Virgin had been a bit smarter, they could have run a contest around this and made it a net benefit.

BTW Virgin is putting a link to each of the photographers Flickr page for the photo they used. For instance this photo belongs to this guy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/eudg/. I wonder if he knows he's in the advert campaign.

There is a lively debate going on over here: Dump Your Pen Friend

Hat tip: MIT Advertising Lab - Can You Use Flickr Pics in Ads?