Dec. 23, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
08:49
2870 Is Google Evil? | Propaganda Decoded
If you've spent any time on the internet, you've probably heard of Google's evil ways, which are most-often associated with the amount of personal data the company collects and the privacy issues that come along with this practice."Big Brother is coming: Google, mass surveillance, and the rise of the 'Internet of Things'" - this is the title of a recent Salon article, which is hardly exceptional amongst online media outlets. Google is watching you. Indeed, the public image of the company is often shrouded in the Orwellian aura of terms like "surveillance" and "spying."Google is not particularly secretive about collecting user information, and online privacy advocates have documented the extent of this practice exceptionally well. The internet giant does know a lot about you - your search history, location, the content of your emails and online storage; the list goes on and on and you can watch this video by Alltime Conspiracies to find out more on this topic.https://www.youtube.com/alltimeconspiraciesWhile the "hows" of Google's "surveillance" are well known, the "whys" are not often talked about. Google's business model and people's reactions to it provide a fascinating windows into the world that we inhabit. So, why is Google collecting so much information from its users? Have you ever asked yourself why the company provides all these great services for free?
Hi everybody, it's DeFan Muller from Free Domain Radio.
So...
A lot of you peeps out there seem to be quite scared of Google.
Its nefarious, slithering tentacle, do-evil, big-brotherly ways of infiltrating your very kidneys and brainstem and turning you to the Sith Lord forces of darkness appears to be what you imagine it to be the opening statement of Google's business plan.
Big Brother is coming!
Google mass surveillance and the rise of the Internet of Things!
That's the title of a recent Salon article.
Google is watching you, states the Guardian.
And so lots of surveillance and spying and so on.
And Google, like Facebook, basically says, hey, you're going to give us data, we'll use it.
They're not secretive about collecting your information.
And online privacy advocates, they have documented what Google does pretty well.
Yeah, Google knows a lot about you.
Your search history, your location, the content of your emails and your online storage and so on.
And you can actually check out a video by All Time Conspiracies to find out more about this.
And people are kind of freaked out about that.
They view this as intrusive and dangerous and so on.
Which is why I suppose a lot of people, if you are young and hit by a car, your dying words are probably, Delete my browser history!
So the house of Google's what's called surveillance and so on are well known.
Not so many people talk about the why's.
Why does Google do this?
How are you able to get an index of everything on the planet and presentation materials and free email and free word processing documentation and Google Drive and, I mean, everything that they do.
How is it possible you're getting all of this free?
Well, it's not that hard to figure out from a business standpoint.
And once we understand the motivations, hopefully some of the...
Fear mongering regarding Google can cool down a bit.
I mean, do you know, a recent survey pointed out that more people are scared of Google than of the NSA. I think those priorities might be a little bit backwards.
So in the 11 years between 2002 and 2013, how much of Google's revenue came from advertising?
Well, that would be 96%.
96%, also known as the score I never quite got in vector calculus.
And so the amount of money that Google is making relative to other advertisement-based outlets, I mean, suggests that it's the most successful advertising platform, certainly of this day and age, and probably of history.
So how on earth does it pull off so much revenue, 96% of its revenue?
Well, it pulls it off Through targeted marketing, through targeted advertising.
So it collects your habits and then it figures out what products and services you're probably going to be the most interested in.
And so Google is not in the business of selling information to you.
Google is in the business of selling your attention to advertisers, and it uses information as a hook, right?
I mean, it's like TV shows, TV stations.
TV stations, they're not in the business of delivering shows to you.
They're in the business of delivering you to their advertisers, and that's how they make the money.
Now, targeted advertising is fantastic.
Advertising, you know, everyone says, ooh, it's so sinister and manipulative and so on.
Try public school political education for that.
But it's simply information that is most likely to be useful to you in your everyday purchasing and research decisions.
That's all.
I suppose if you write somewhere in Google, hey, we just had a baby, then Google will serve up to you Hey, here's some free samples of baby food or something like that.
Or here's some coupons for diapers.
It's useful.
It's helpful.
And of course, in the past, you just had to do like a scattershot approach rather than a pinpoint approach.
It was like carpet bombing your message rather than laser targeted.
And so it's hugely efficient.
It saves massive amounts of time.
If Google didn't have any information about you, first of all, you'd have to pay for all of its services.
And secondly, you'd see a whole bunch of ads that would have nothing to do with any of your life's interests.
So you'd be, do you need a pregnancy test would be targeted at an 84-year-old man.
I mean, this would be a huge way because, you know, you'd notice it, you'd glance at it.
It would be a massive waste of time.
Google is paid because it's very efficient and because people buy based upon ads.
Ads are helpful.
Ads stimulate knowledge and costs and price and benefits and coupons and so on.
They stimulate people's consumptive behavior.
and it's very efficient.
Think of a park bench versus Google knows that you're going to college, and therefore you may need some particular college stuff to be helpful in college.
You might need that to be targeted towards you.
It's very efficient.
It makes so much money because it's very efficient, it works, and it helps people in their purchasing decisions.
Now, I guess you could say, well, why doesn't Google give me the option Well, the problem with these kinds of questions, and I run the world's biggest philosophy show, and I'm constantly getting advice on my business model, which assumes that I'm functionally retarded.
And so, if you're going to say, well, why doesn't Google do this?
Well, we have to assume that Google has some of the smartest people from business and technology and marketing and sales on the planet.
Well, why haven't they?
This is an interesting question to ask.
I don't have the answer because I don't work at Google, but this is the reality.
We're just used to getting free stuff.
And, you know, you don't recognize, most people don't recognize you can pay a couple of bucks a month for Netflix and get ad-free shows, or you can, instead of paying through money, you can pay through time.
And that's, of course, what Google charges.
So, So why are people terrified of Google?
I don't know.
This doesn't really do any harm in and of itself.
It's simply used to give you information that can be helpful in terms of things you might need to buy or want.
However, Google plus government...
Well, you see, now there we are in a different kind of situation.
Because Google having this information...
It's not particularly harmful to you.
However, the government using the information that Google has gotten can be, well, much more problematic, much more difficult.
Google's not going to blackmail you.
The government, of course, not that they would out-and-out blackmail, but the government can use that information in conjunction with the awesome power of law and the rather shady gray areas of legality.
These are huge problems.
So it is not the aggregation of private information by Google that is the problem.
It is the fact that the NSA has, to some degree, wired itself into Google servers and is collecting information which it can use with the awesome power of the state, of the police, of the military, of the law courts, of the prison industrial complex, and so on.
It really is important to recognize where your true challenges and dangers lie.
It's not from a bunch of highly mathematically gifted propeller heads at Google.
It is the politicians who are going to gather that information and who may use it in negative or nefarious ways.
We do know, for instance, that there are significant indications that there was targeting of conservative groups during recent elections that may have actually swayed the entire election towards Obama.
This is the grave danger of the aggregation of information.
It's not the private company's Google can nag you with ads.
The government can throw you in a cage, so let's keep our perspective.
There's no such thing as a free lunch, and the eyeball time that Google takes is virtually nothing and extremely unobtrusive.
However, the lifetime that the government can corral you into tiny rape cages, that is the real danger.
