Google LLC is an American multinational technology company that specializes in Internet-related services and products, which include online advertising technologies, search engine, cloud computing, software, and hardware. Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University, California. Together, they own about 14 percent of its shares and control 56 percent of the stockholder voting power through supervoting stock. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998. An initial public offering (IPO) took place on August 19, 2004, and Google moved to its new headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. In August 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate called Alphabet Inc. Google, Alphabet’s leading subsidiary, will continue to be the umbrella company for Alphabet’s Internet interests. Upon completion of the restructure, Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet.
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While conventional search engines ranked results by counting how many times the search terms appeared on the page, the two theorized about a better system that analyzed the relationships among websites. They called this new technology PageRank; it determined a website’s relevance by the number of pages, and the importance of those pages that linked back to the original site
so much to take in here.. maybe someday
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adding page same day added: censor\ship page
Ellen Clegg (@ellenclegg) tweeted at 6:04 AM – 4 Aug 2018 :
Google struggles to contain employee uproar over China censorship plans https://t.co/6gYviKh8jv by @rj_gallagher (http://twitter.com/ellenclegg/status/1025713973180735488?s=17)
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CNN (@CNN) tweeted at 6:12 AM – 17 Aug 2018 :
Google sought to reassure employees who are worried the company might compromise its values to get into China, following reports it was working on a search engine that would comply with Chinese government censorship.https://t.co/mcciiBXLQN (http://twitter.com/CNN/status/1030427090192150528?s=17)
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from douglas:
douglas rushkoff (@rushkoff) tweeted at 7:29 AM on Fri, Aug 17, 2018:
I just published “Dear Google Employees” https://t.co/SPzR45Bmuy
(https://twitter.com/rushkoff/status/1030446404706025472?s=03)Congratulations on your letter questioning the morality and impact of the censored search engine you were building for China. You are courageously leveraging your power as developers to insist on participating in decisions about how that power is deployed. You are the human beings who have intervened in the machine.
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ou also requested employee participation in ethical reviews of company decisions, and a group of representatives to make ethical assessments of controversial projects.
I believe at least some of those representatives should come from outside the company, and I humbly offer to serve.
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But, as you have said, you need evaluators with expertise in crucial sectors of human activity impacted by your work.
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In addition to myself, I’d suggest Dan Gillmor for his knowledge of the relationship of technology to journalism and free speech; Tim Wu, for his understanding of the attention economy; Astra Taylor, for the relationship of platforms to art production and debt; Larry Lessig for questions of IP and the law; Alicia Garza for her expertise in social justice and activism; Tristan Harris, for the impact of software on behavior and cognition; Marina Gorbis to look at economic inequality; Palak Shah and Trebor Scholz to represent digital labor; Richard Maxwell for effects of technology on the environment, and so on.
astra.. larry.. alicia.. tristan.. marina.. trebor..
Such a committee of people who have been studying the impact of digital technology on essential human rights can use their understanding of larger systems to help you apply your work in ways consistent with your values.
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1400 google employees protest
From headlines: Fourteen hundred employees of Google have signed a letter protesting against their company’s plans to launch a service in China that will allow Chinese censors to block search terms about human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protest
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thread
An interesting dimension to the Google-China saga is that inside the company there is a debate now raging among employees regarding leaks to the press. Here’s my perspective:
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/rj_gallagher/status/1031225463568576512
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Jérémie Zimmermann https://mamot.fr/@jz (@jerezim) tweeted at 5:40 AM – 4 Sep 2018 :
via https://t.co/AvNkp3nwYd
Happy Birthday #Google!
20y ago, the CIA help bootstrap a company that became an empire, turning profiling of online activities into a widespread practice and mass-surveillance into a “cool” business-model!
https://t.co/fWL2egP8ft
#FuckOffGoogle 1/2 (http://twitter.com/jerezim/status/1036942190923141121?s=17)Jérémie Zimmermann https://mamot.fr/@jz (@jerezim) tweeted at 5:41 AM – 4 Sep 2018 :
via https://t.co/AvNkp3nwYd
Happy Birthday #Google 2/2
https://t.co/fWL2egP8ft
Here to the next 20 years of centralized control through genetics, transportation, energy, “smart city”, robots and financial speculation:
#FuckOffGoogle #DecentralizeAll https://t.co/3bnI2OJrFW (http://twitter.com/jerezim/status/1036942446138195969?s=17)
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Gizmodo (@Gizmodo) tweeted at 7:57 AM – 1 Nov 2018 :
We’re going to be at the #GoogleWalkout in New York City this morning starting at 11am ET. Here’s why thousands of Google employees around the world are walking out: https://t.co/62AEJL2AlR (http://twitter.com/Gizmodo/status/1057995052897787904?s=17)pia mancini (@piamancini) tweeted at 6:58 PM on Thu, Nov 01, 2018:
Wow. https://t.co/mquk9qt0Yt
(https://twitter.com/piamancini/status/1058161476983238661?s=03)
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Simone Cicero (@meedabyte) tweeted at 0:59 AM on Tue, Dec 22, 2020:
The fact that on a daily basis, 15% of all @Google queries have never been searched before is mind-blowing.
(https://twitter.com/meedabyte/status/1341292242661683205?s=03)
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the social dilemma (doc)
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be you. 