The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry)

In the beginning, the World Wide Web was exciting and open to the point of anarchy, a vast and intimidating repository of unindexed confusion. Into this creative chaos came Google with its dazzling mission―“To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible”―and its much-quoted motto, “Don’t be evil.” In this provocative book, Siva Vaidhyanathan examines the ways we have used and embraced Google―and the growing resistance to its expansion across the globe. He exposes the dark side of our Google fantasies, raising red flags about issues of intellectual property and the much-touted Google Book Search. He assesses Google’s global impact, particularly in China, and explains the insidious effect of Googlization on the way we think. Finally, Vaidhyanathan proposes the construction of an Internet ecosystem designed to benefit the whole world and keep one brilliant and powerful company from falling into the “evil” it pledged to avoid.

• Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
• In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
• The Filter Bubble: How the New Personalized Web Is Changing What We Read and How We Think
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
• Media & Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power
• Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe
• World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech
• Custodians of the Internet: Platforms, Content Moderation, and the Hidden Decisions That Shape Social Media
• Intellectual Property: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)