Chapter 6 - GOOGLE: GOOD OR EVIL SEARCH ENGINE?

-Overview

Many search engines were created in the beginning of the World Wide Web and Google is now one of the most well-used. This chapter will analyse Google on all aspects in its creation, power, employees, users and format.

-6.1 Introduction

Google is the most accessed website in the world among others. It is used in basically every everyday life situations. “To google” has become a new verb in several languages, in Swedish and English as prime examples.

-6.2 Google’s political economy

Founded in 1998 and became a public company in 2004. Since then it has expanded in profit, usage and made its owners and CEO(s) the wealthiest in America. Google wasn’t heavily affected by the economic crisis in 2008 but it’s value still dropped with millions of dollars. Funny enough did Google earn and make a lot of advertisement for other companies based on Google’s own user-data history. With a large company like this, does all the employees make a huge salary? No, only the founders and the CEO(s), and giving them 70-90 % of the power and voting. By not taking fees, Google exploits all their users and their content. The data Google contains either sells or are stored. Other than that Google lives on as a kind of economic surveillance.

-6.3 Googology: google and ideology

Google like to say they use the “20 % rule” in benefit of their employees to let them work on own projects. Ironically the projects will only be owned by Google as a company. Critique means employees are forced to live the “Google life” were work and fun projects will take up all their time with difficulty living outside of the company.

There are a few ideologies that exists thanks to the internet. Internet solutionism is one, “internet is the solution to the world’s problems”, and Oscar Gandy (2009) states algorithmic prediction and control might cause higher racism and separatism, or persecution. The control on the internet is shown in how panic is handled. Even for users, privacy isn’t optional. The information will be used for and against users and employees, if it isn’t sensitive data or personal information.

6.4 Work at Google

Is it really that good to work at Google? While advertising tasty food, interesting people visiting and fun projects (20 % rule), the darkness of long working hours are hanging. It shows off as a family-convention, calling each other Googlers, but estimates to create peer-pressure and performance anxiety.

6.5 Google: God and Satan in One Company

According to the author, Google is both the best and worst ever happening to the internet. The positive is how it can help people on many levels, but on the other hand it also has capitalism by the corner making these technologies and production relationships.

6.6 Conclusion

The author ends the chapter by stating that Karl Marx invented the internet and Google when it comes to what he has written about communication and information services, which makes Google’s founders only “idea borrowers”
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