"Cory Doctorow - Scroogled" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dodd Christina)

Scroogled
Google controls your e-mail, your videos, your calendar, your searches…
What if it controlled your life?


By Cory Doctorow

WHAT IF GOOGLE WERE EVIL? Cory Doctorow imagines the worst


"Give me six lines written by the most honorable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang
him." —Cardinal Richelieu

"We don't know enough about you." —Google CEO Eric Schmidt



Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he'd made it to the front of
the customs line, it was after midnight. He'd emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and
loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French
college girls the rest of the time). When he'd left the city a month before, he'd been a stoop-shouldered,
potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the
cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he'd slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat
ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis
racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on
the middle-age couple ahead of him.

"The marvels of modern technology," said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration—Powered
by Google.

"I thought that didn't start until next month?" The man was alternately wearing and holding a large
sombrero.


The U.S. government had spent $15 billion and hadn't caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public
sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.
Googling at the border. Christ. Greg had vested out of Google six months before, cashing in his options
and "taking some me time"—which turned out to be less rewarding than he'd expected. What he mostly
did over the five months that followed was fix his friends' PCs, watch daytime TV, and gain 10 pounds,
which he blamed on being at home instead of in the Googleplex, with its well-appointed 24-hour gym.

He should have seen it coming, of course. The U.S. government had lavished $15 billion on a program to
fingerprint and photograph visitors at the border, and hadn't caught a single terrorist. Clearly, the public
sector was not equipped to Do Search Right.

The DHS officer had bags under his eyes and squinted at his screen, prodding at his keyboard with
sausage fingers. No wonder it was taking four hours to get out of the god damned airport.