The World Since Google

Dr Ben Swift

University of the Third Age (U3A)

code / creativity / culture

culture (n.) — all the knowledge and values shared by a society

a short, incomplete, mostly wrong history of the internet since 1996

Google’s mission

to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful

it’s all about the connections

rank a page by who links to it — PageRank

the secret sauce

talk

who finds Google reliable? usable? useful?

and — what do you pay for search, email, news, calendars?

but…

(there’s always a but)

the AdWords auction

the original sin?

the most brilliant minds of my generation, tuning ad clicks

80–90% of profit comes from advertising

surveillance capitalism

cui bono?

the hope-filled third act

GDPR and the right to your own data

know your footprint · make informed choices · (perhaps) pay for things

open questions

are you willing to pay for your search results? news? email?

is data the new oil, or the new uranium?

has Google changed the culture?

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