Google and the World Brain Response

Google and the World Brain raised many interesting points about privacy, the future of technology and the Monopoly that Google is becoming. The documentary touched on many different aspects of Google and the idea they had to scan every book in the world to make it available digitally. At first many librarians liked the idea of putting all their books online to make it readily available. So Google continued to put as many books on the web as possible before running into legal trouble. Authors around the world confessed their concern that Google was taking their work and putting it online without permission. After a heavy legal battle, Google was forced to stop scanning books and compensate the author's whom books they illegally copyrighted.

Another aspect the documentary talked about was the lack of privacy that we have in today's society and how Google may be responsible for some of it. Every time we type something in on Google it is stored in their memory and then used to advertise to us. This goes to any aspect of technology, our phones included. Everything is saved online and we give out a ton of information openly through popular social media websites like Facebook and Twitter to basically give anyone the right to easily find out who you are. With more advanced technology like Google Glass now we give the right to Google to even see what we are up to on a daily basis. Privacy is getting lost through technology and it's only getting worse.

There was a very eye opening point in the film where a man was talking about the progression of technology and how he is attached to his smart phone. He believes that in the future there will be a chip in your brain that will allow you to do certain things to make you eat better, do things better, and live longer. I think that's a pretty ridiculous concept but the fact that he thinks that will happen makes me worry a little bit. I kept asking the question where will this end? We crossed the barrier of privacy and technology is only getting more advanced, so maybe putting a chip in your brain is the future and maybe Google is already working on a prototype. It's a crazy idea but nobody knows what exactly goes on in Mountain View, California.

Finally the idea of the Google monopoly was the main idea of this documentary in my mind. Google books was ultimately shut down because they would control the online book market leaving other competitors behind due to their vast selection. Besides Google books they have a piece of almost everything else. They revolutionized the search engine as people almost always refer to "google it" if there is a question that needs an answer. They now have phones, GPS, social applications, education applications, you name it Google has it or are probably going to have it. The future is endless for this billion dollar company, it seems that nothing can stop them from controlling the market of almost anything they want.