[Upd-discuss] Hack the Google self.referentialism - Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI)

Thu, 22 Dec 2005 07:40:52 -0800 (PST)

 "Matteo Pasquinelli" <matteopasquinelli@gmx.it>  
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2005 19:27:07 +0100 
To: rekombinant@liste.rekombinant.org 
Subject: [RK]     

From: Hans Bernhard <play@ubermorgen.com>
Date: December 19, 2005 13:23:37 GMT+01:00
Subject: <nettime> Hack the Google self.referentialism - Google Will  
Eat Itself

Hack the Google self.referentialism - Google Will Eat Itself*

Bari/Vienna, 18 December 2005
http://www.gwei.org

How can a dictator be funny for the people? One chance is to know how to
entertain the people, while continuing to influence every decision they
make, so invisibly maintaining the totalitarian power untouched.

Google's management knows very well how to entertain surfers. They are not
a (totalitarian) government, but they are the first, and almost only
reference for most of the internet users. Moreover they periodically
announce and release new, effective (and entertaining) services. People
like these services. People want them and want even more of them.

It's not a Microsoft-like type of monopoly at all. On the Google planet
everything works and is easy and funny. Everything is light (as the
interface) and tasty (as the images search), resource-rich (as Gmail) or
fast and updated (as Google News). So the "cream" of fun and the
"strawberries" of interesting results are flavouring the Google
dictatorship. In fact we're talking of a monopoly, or so, in a certain
number of strategical net economy sectors.

The Google database is an incredibly valuable bunch of data. It's
constituted by the most visited pages of the net. But they are selected
through the Google's page rank algorithm. It's the paradigm of their
self-referential game: the moment they had enough credibility they
established the web filter criteria, and then, being the first source,
they decided what the content of this source would be.

On the other hand the database of searches and the requests of other
services (news, images, cheap prices, personal mail) is even much more
relevant. In fact, it can be localized and statistically analyzed, and
crossing locative, general and product searches, constitutes the secret
dream of every Internet marketing executive. It deals to a frightening
perspective of 'profiling' the Google's users.

The common perception is that Google offers chances of augmenting the
personal information power in exchange of small and digestible amount of
advertisement.

But all the recorded data (the queries and their respective users) are
simply ignored by the users, which are hypnotized by an almost perfect
virtual machine.

This funny empire has another crucial element: the advertisement. Goggle
is the biggest player in the net advertisement business (actually adv is
its core business). Being the most visited search engine, it attracts
billions of users. Their billions of eyeballs are seeing Google's pages
with the above mentioned textual advertisments, that everybody can fairly
buy (AdWords).
On the other end, tons of people have become "publishers" through the
giant blog phenomenon. So they are entitled to share the bits of profits
through the Adsense program. They accept to display this tiny text
advertisment in exchange of a small amount of money for every click on
them. This process is protected and monitored for preventing abuse.

The final (actual) scenario is Google as the giant middleman. It sucks
money from the advertisers offering a targeted portion of the global
webspace. And it gives spare changes to the publishers for their
collaboration. It sucks infos from the websites (and news, images, prices)
and it releases it to the user's queries. Being in the middle it is more
and more the unavoidable balancing center of the system. But we're not
talking about a natural systems. We're talking about business and
predominance.
Google's position is predominant in the same moment it enteres a new
business field with a new service. It's the Google effect: creating
consensus on a new business, even if it instantly gets the predominant
position.

The greatest enemy of such a giant is not another giant: it's the
parasite. If enough parasitites suck small amounts of money in this
self-referentialism embodiment, they will empty this artificial mountain
of data and its inner risk of digital totalitarianism.

http://www.gwei.org

* Text by Alessandro Ludovico feat. UBERMORGEN.COM vs. Paolo Cirio

Online Project Documentation
http://www.gwei.org

Media Contact
Hans Bernhard
hans@ubermorgen.com
+43 650 930 00 61

The Authors
UBERMORGEN.COM feat. Alessandro Ludovico vs. Paolo Cirio

Hans Bernhard is the founder of etoy, a art-group famous for their digital
hijack (1996) and the TOYWAR (etoy vs eToys Inc., 1999/2000) and of
UBERMORGEN.COM, the masterminds behind [V]ote-Auction, (CNN called Hans a
"Maverick Austrian businessman"), NAZI~LINE (a collaboration with
Christoph Schlingensief), AnuScan.com and Psych|OS.
www.etoy.com
www.hansbernhard.com

lizvlx is the founder of Founder of 194.152.164.137 and UBERMORGEN.COM,
the masterminds behind projects such a s [V]ote-Auction (a vote-selling
platform during the presidential elections 2000. The Result: 14 Lawsuits,
2500 News-features worldwide, CIA, FBI, NSA, Janet Reno), *THE*AGENCY*,
bmdi.de, IPNIC.ORG / Injunction Generator, BANKSTATEMENTGENERATOR and ART
FID. 
www.ubermorgen.com
www.vote-auction.net
www.ipnic.org

Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and editor in chief of Neural
magazine. He has written: 'Virtual Reality Handbook' (1992), 'Internet
Underground.Guide' (1995), 'Suoni Futuri Digitali' (Future Digital Sounds,
2000). He's one of the founding contributors of the Nettime community and
of the 'Mag.Net (European Cultural Publishers)' organization.

Paolo Cirio, aliases bidibid, 1979, lives in Turin, Italy. Paolo Cirio is
part of a software-art collective [epidemiC]. As agitprop he organizes
illegal events, from net-strikes to art happenings on streets and other
various media jammings. He works also in video-art and in street-art.
Activist against militarism of NATO, he is editor of a main international
web portal about it. He works as web designer and web developer. 

--
Hans Bernhard
UBERMORGEN.COM

Skype Hans_Bernhard
Office +43 1 236 19 85
Mobile +43 650 930 00 61
Email hans@ubermorgen.com
Web www.ubermorgen.com

http://www.gwei.org

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Zapopan Muela
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
"Tiranos y autócratas han entendido siempre que el alfabetismo, 
el conocimiento, los libros y los periódicos son un peligro 
en potencia. Pueden inculcar ideas independientes e incluso
de rebeldía en las cabezas de sus súbditos.
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
"Tyrants and autocrats have always understood that literacy, 
learning, books and newspapers are potentially dangerous. 
They can put independent and even rebelious ideas to the heads 
of their subjects."
----------------------------- v -------------------------------
-- Sagan, Carl (1997). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle
in the Dark : El mundo y sus demonios: La ciencia como una luz en la 
oscuridad. México: Planeta, p. 390; New York: Ballantine Books, p. 362.

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