一塊地 Piece of Land

The advent of cybernetics is actualized today.

This is the disappointment I feel when I saw the news regarding to Google's personalization of everybody's search result.

My disappointment came with excitement because I was actually telling my friends that Google can control us through browsers and they think I am nut. It happened last week when I discussed my Google setting with a few friends online: my Google search kept directing me to Google Taiwan even if I signed out or changed my account settings. I then did some testing between different browsers and found different Google search results. The same happened when I typed the URL www.youtube.com in my IE, FireFox, and Chrome- different browswers show different content even at the same IP and time.

I was so shocked so I went delete all my cookies in all the browsers and guess what, everything was in Dutch (since I am now in the Dutch land) and unified in IE, FireFox, and Chrome. I didn't go deeper with after this incident; however, I began to be aware of my browser cookies and my Google online/offline status. 

At the same time I also felt the creation of browser tabs is genius! Along with high-speed internet, they together kept me continuously connected to all my online accounts: Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, Facebook, and Twitter. I still remember when I first use IE back in 1998, I always tried not to open more than 4 IE windows in case of slower connention as suggested by the PC Home magazine which I subscribed. But now who cares how many tabs are opening at your browsers? The more means convenience.

Same as Google Web Search. When I tell some people that Google can remember your preference, the response I usually hear is that: "wow~ that's very convenient!" It seems to me many people nowadays not only don’t' care their world being highly commercialized and materialistic, but they are also willing to be controlled for the sake of convenience. In this sense, I can't agree more with Nicholas Carr that Google makes us stupid.

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