TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Re: Google Maps

Re: Google Maps

AES (siegman@stanford.edu)
Wed, 06 Apr 2005 08:15:02 -0700

I love all the remarkable, almost unbelievable and unlimited features
of Google. But it truly bothers me that what is fast becoming THE
primary reference and search tool and "window on the world" for me and
so many others is founded on and controlled by an entirely commercial
and primarily advertising-supported financial base.

Sergey Brin and the other founders of Google can say all they want
about their company's ultimate purpose being to "do good", and I'm
quite willing to believe they're sincere about this. But they won't
always be around and may not always have control of Google, and in the
end, "He who pays the piper calls the tune." Think about the power
and the ability to control just what information you are provided --
or are NOT provided -- the potential control that could be exercised
over what commercial, political, technical, ideological,
environmental, or other information is made readily available to you
-- by less idealistic people who might (in fact, are certain to)
acquire ownership of Google some time in the future.

I think the viewpoint expressed in what I sometimes use as a sig file
contains way too much truth:

"Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton (1834-1902)

"Dependence on advertising tends to corrupt. Total dependence on
advertising corrupts totally." My own equivalent for today.

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