Google’s like to see itself as being on a high speed course to becoming Big Brother, it seems (unofficially of course). It just bought into ‘23andMe’, and it it looks like today’s royalty of the new information empire seems to have caught on well on the benefits of yesterday’s one’s machinations: Google co-founder Sergey Brin married earlier this month Anne Wojcicki, co-founder of the hopeful queendom of ‘23andme’. Her aim is to provide consumers with information about their genetic make-up, such as inherited traits.
This of course fits perfectly with Google’s desire to gather more and more information about each and everyone of of us, something that its spin doctors harmlessly call ‘personalisation’. And naturally, control over our lives is not just aimed at building ever larger data bases; you’ll need to do something with them. For example: they could help to tell us what questions we should ask when we are thinking what to do with ourselves. Google chief executive Eric Schmidt already has some ideas: “The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation,” he was quoted as saying; “the goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’”.
With Google’s intimate knowledge of us and with ready-made answers for ready-made questions, life will be easy. McDonaldisation has successfully taken over our eating habits, and it looks like it McGoogle might do the same not just with our lifestyle choices but with the very essence of who we are. Yipee!
[see also BBC News]
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