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“With Social Search, Google finds relevant public content from your friends and contacts and highlights it for you at the bottom of your search results,”
What so for example I search for "Christmas candles" and then Google recommending my friends latest porn searches for the maximum number of candles she can take in one go!? :) ... I don't think I want to know! :) ... certainly not at that point in time! :)
Joking aside this all looks like a way to educate people into accepting ever more loss of their privacy. Everyone starts getting leaked information on everyone else ... its all about sharing you know. Share your information with everyone. Meanwhile the power hungry control freaks are more than happy to placate people into accepting a total loss of their privacy, because the more information people leak, the more power it gives the elite in a position to exploit such growing open data and so knowledge and power.
Oh great ... so when will I be getting Businesses and Politician propaganda advertising along the lines of:
(1) Buy this product as its owned by 73.23% of your friends!
(2) This politician is doing exactly what you are interested in, in situations A, B and C so he is ideal for you to vote for him!
I hear they already manipulate printed manifestos in America (which they post to each household) and the lies and manipulation are based on information they hold on you. So for example, if you own a gun license or a car license etc... so they say things like "we are doing all we can to help protect you, vote for us." ... if you don't have a gun license. But if you do have a gun license, they say something like "we are doing all we can to help you protect yourself, vote for us." ... its all subtle manipulation based on what they know about you. Each thing they know gives them another string to pull. What they are really saying is, "vote for me, I want power". The more information companies and governments get on us all, the more effective their lies and manipulation become over ever more of us ... until they fool enough people to give them a big enough share to have real power and influence. But they don't care about us, even when they say they do, they are focused on their own greed for money and power and all the personal gain they get from such power and they will say more or less whatever it takes to get what they want.
I don't care so much about businesses exploiting technology (although I hate endless adverts), but I do very much care about anything that allows political exploitation of technology. Google's power is scary how it can be used for political gain, after all even political views need advertising. But worse still I find the insidious way we are loosing our privacy and liberty very worrying and this news is yet another good example of the educating to push us into acquiescence and we are all being bombarded with it endlessly, to make us all accept ever more loss of our privacy and ever more growing power over us all. The problem is, throughout history when a powerful minority gain such crushing power over the majority, it always without fail, ends badly.