June 14st, 2012
“The World According to Google” film notes
* Google Algorithm is the most piece of valuable intellectual property in the world. * They were accused of favouring search results in favour of their sponsors * By digitizing, we will have to selectively pick what to keep. There is just too much. Long term unanticipated consequences will be the loss of libraries and archives that will be expensive in the future and have limited access. * Google claimed that they weren't going to charge for digitized books, but in the future it isn't guaranteed. * Focused on the emergence of Google at a time that certainly appeared to advancing, and not willing to share that technology and not participate in the alliance to digitize books in a manner that would be public versus proprietary. * The distinction between the natural results in Google search versus the sponsored result. In the video, it was talked about as something new that Google was doing and still does increasingly. * The description of what Google was going is that the sponsored links were not entirely based on how much the company was paying to have their link there at the top * The example used in the video is the furnisher maker working independently to advertise what Google was making competing with IKEA, but rank order of independent furniture could appear above IKEA if more people were entering that link. * In 2011, there were allegations that the Google algorithm was biased and that results were not coming up based on popularity. Google denied these allegations. * Google was making a claim that they were neutral, without affecting the content of the information. * It ought to raise some questions on our end, that media plays a significant role in what and how issues are represented.