The Googlization of Everything
(And Why We Should Worry)
By: Siva Vaidhyanathan
Published: March 8, 2011
Format: Hardcover, 280 pages
ISBN-10: 0520258827
ISBN-13: 978-0520258822
Publisher: University of California Press
"On the basis of that faith - born of users' experiences with the services that Google provides - since the search engine first appeared and spread through word of mouth for a dozen years, Google has permeated our culture. That's what I mean by Googlization", writes cultural historian and media scholar, and Professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, Siva Vaidhyanathan, in his groundbreaking and thought provoking book The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). The author describes how people need to look more closely at Google, its activities, and its ubiquitous role in influencing and altering our everyday lives and ways of thinking and examining the world.
Siva Vaidhyanathan recognizes the success that internet search giant Google has achieved as an online corporation. For the author, that success also means that Google is gaining ever greater power and control over the internet itself and the very information carried on the world wide web. Siva Vaidhyanathan points out that people should understand that Google is a publicly traded company, seeking profit and return on investment for shareholders. With this important premise in mind, the author presents evidence that people should offer uncritical faith in Google's activities and products. One way that Siva Vaidhyanathan turns the usual thinking about Google upside down, is his valuable insight that users of Google searches are not the company's customers. Instead, Google users are its product, to be sold to advertisers.
Siva Vaidhyanathan (photo left) shares the startling concept that people search the web for information, but that Google uses those searches to gain information about those very same users. Because of peoples' faith in Google, and its claims of being a benevolent service provider, the author writes that the general public must be vigilant of Google's intensive influence on how people think and understand that same information. Siva Vaidhyanathan presents evidence that Google's search rankings are not identical to quality of search results, but instead are rigged in very subtle but crucial ways.
The very ease with which Google moves into every corner of people's internet usage, unchallenged and unquestioned, is what the author calls Googlization. The very fact that Google is so good at its business, and operates by whatever rules it chooses, give the author reason for the need to pause and reflect on Google's growing power and influence. While Siva Vaidhyanathan doesn't consider Google to be evil, he doesn't attribute moral goodness to the company either. Instead, he offers some very profound remedies for curtailing the Googlization of everything people see and do on the internet.
For me, the power of the book is how Siva Vaidhyanathan combines his in depth analysis of Google and its intensive influence on our lives with an alternative concept of an internet ecosystem. The author moves beyond the usual discussion of the Google success story, and biographies of the company founders and its corporate executives. Instead, the author provides profound, and often frightening insights into how the very ubiquity of Google forms the basis of its growing power. Siva Vaidhyanathan takes a global perspective and examines Google in the West, but also looks at the impact of Google in China.
Far from a force for good in the world, the author describes Google as an insidious entity that is changing the very way that people think about and process information. The understanding, on the part of Siva Vaidhyanathan, that Google users are the product and not the customer, leads to deeper insights into the Google business model and its ever expanding global empire. To counter this trend, Siva Vaidhyanathan presents his internet ecosystem model that offers benefits for all people around the world, including those whose intellectual property may be compromised through Google indexing and search results.
I highly recommend the eye opening and must read book The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan, to anyone seeking a richer understanding into the growing power and influence of Google, and its expansion of its global corporate reach. This landmark book provides a visionary look at what the author sees as a Google dominated dystopia, and offers an alternative view for creating a more people friendly internet landscape.
Read the important and idea changing book The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry) by Siva Vaidhyanathan, and discover how and why Google dominates the world wide web, and what dangers this control presents to the global community. This startling book is an opening salvo in support of a more egalitarian and democratic internet that benefits everyone.
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