The singularity cometh

I was dismayed to learn six years back or so that Google had acquired YouTube. While the media focussed almost entirely on the benefits or dangers this would confer to both companies, as well as the dollars involved, there didn’t seem to be many people wondering aloud whether this was actually a good thing. I saw it as something of ominous portent — Google further expanding its reach into our lives. That couldn’t be good. And things I’ve noticed recently while using YouTube have borne that concern out.

Neither Google nor YouTube have ever charged for their very useful services (yes, I’ve been a gmail user since 2000), preferring instead to make their money through advertisers. This was perfectly acceptable for the frugally-minded or just plain cheap among us. Google mines your email for keywords that marketers are looking for and peppers you with their advertisements when logged into your email account. Businesses only pay for the advertising when someone clicks on their ad. They employ a similar strategy when you use their search engine, providing advertisements or links to websites germaine to the things for which you’re searching. It’s simple and brilliant and Google has grown into the juggernaut that it is by employing this and other win/win strategies. As a user, some innocuously placed advertising is a seemingly small price to pay for such useful services, especially if you’re largely immune (in your own mind, anyway) to the enticements of the consumer-driven world.

So why is Google getting it’s hands on YouTube’s technology and user capital such a big deal?

In the last year, as I’ve begun to make more use of YouTube for my work, I’ve noticed a somewhat disturbing thing. As I started to watch a YouTube video an advertisement would often pop up relating to something (if not the exact thing) I had mentioned in an email the previous day.  Until recently I was tempted (wanted!) to write it off as mere coincidence. But then advertisements for RedGate Software started popping up. This isn’t something that any random person is going to have a clue or care about. To me, that an advertisement regarding this software would present to me (many times) as a random recipient stretches the bounds of credibility. YouTube knew this would be relevant to me, because of the phrase “RedGate Software” in my emails. I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all, and I’ll explain why in a little bit.

Something you may not realize is that if you have a gmail account, you automatically have a YouTube account. They are, in fact, one and the same. If you are logged into gmail, then you are logged into YouTube and this means that all of the videos you watch are being tracked. Along with all of the knowledge Google has about you from your email (and it is plentiful) it now has the ability to add to its profile of you all of the videos you search for and watch. I’ve gone through the privacy settings and can find no way to turn this off.

Now, the prevailing attitude among most people when issues of privacy in violation are pointed out is this: “Meh, so what. I’m a good person. I don’t have anything to hide.” To this I say that you are either naive, willfully blind, or outright lying.

We all have online presences. We all use the internet for a variety of purposes, both business and pleasure. There is a lot of money to be made by companies that are able to place themselves as the facilitators between you and the content or functionality you want. But the bigger prize, I think, is the accumulation of wealth in knowledge about people. Both people on the macro scale and people as individuals. There are massively complex databases out there at places like Google that are compiling and collating data on you. Daily, you give away a little bit of information about yourself that seems insignificant — something you’re interested in, something you’re buying, people you’re looking for, people you’re connected to…. it goes on and on. Virtually every aspect of our lives can now have an internet-based component. More and more services are being developed to fulfill virtually every human “need” (yes, that was in quotes) on an electronic platform and this includes, of course, the most dynamic segment of the market right now — smartphones.

Databases of countless bits of information are being compiled on individuals the world over, ostensibly for “the convenience of the customer”, and “market research purposes” in order to “enhance our services”. All of this is probably true. And while technology itself is neither good nor bad, it is most often used for both — eventually.

Google’s acquisition of YouTube is a perfect example of an information-wealthy company expanding and leveraging that information in an unprecendented way. For the purposes of “providing better service” it has knitted the massive amount of information now at its disposal within those two source databases together, vastly amplifying its knowledge of what you and I and millions of others are about. What will happen if Google acquires Facebook next and merges all of that information with what it’s already got? It could happen. And if does, what won’t it know about you? What secrets will you have left?

To conclude, I want to leave you with this food for thought: How much longer will it be before some massive, globally influential organization suddenly knows more about you than you know about yourself? What then? Well, you’d better hope that all the people in that organization have nothing more on their minds than running a simple business, because it seems to me that at that point we’re all open for coercion, extortion, and blackmail. In truth, I’m sure most of us are already desperately vulnerable. And if you’re one of those deluded people who thinks you have nothing to hide and will therefore be immune to that sort of thing, think again. Think 1930s Germany. Think Chile. Think North Korea. Think Stalinist Russia. No one will be safe.