Google and a Flurry of Excitement from 2006
April 10, 2010
Excitement in Harrod’s Creek. Honk.
I got a couple of pings today about a story circulating based on a talk I gave in 2006. I am not going to give credence to the comments. I want to point out that since I wrote The Google Legacy, my research has turned up nothing particularly significant about Google’s work with various governmental agencies. In 2007, I published Google Version 2.0 and focused on the company’s new data management methods known as the Programmable Search Engine. I have mentioned in numerous talks about the usefulness of this type of “fill in the blanks” system to law enforcement professionals worldwide.
I have heard zip about Google’s use of this system outside of some demonstration projects related to a trial real estate service and the function in Google Products. In 2009, I published Google: The Digital Gutenberg. In the course of that study I reviewed the comments I collected and the open source information I process and found nothing of interest related to government or law enforcement activities by Google for the handful of entities for whom I have worked. That study focused on Google’s publishing potential, but I did describe a particularly fascinating technology called “dataspaces.” I have written about this innovation for IDG in an IDC report #213562, my Beyond Search study for the Gilbane Group, and a chapter in Google: The Digital Gutenberg. I think this technology has significant value for law enforcement professionals, but I came across zero information that Google has made this technology available to government agencies. A baby version of dataspace functionality seems to be embedded in Google Wave, but it is not the full scale system of the data manifold that I describe. In my forthcoming study, I worked through my notes and research for Google’s rich media innovations. I found no information germane to the use of these technologies and law enforcement. I see how some of them could be of great value.
I appreciate the interest in my public work but it is important to recognize that if I had substantive information about Google’s technology applied to law enforcement, I would include it in my for fee studies. At the very least, I would mention it in my talks and I would try to get a rise out of the audience. I don’t have any information that suggests that Google is doing much more than complying with routine, legal requests for information just as any other civic minded organization does.
My suggestion is to read my Google trilogy and learn what my research does say about Google’s capabilities. Chasing me down for a talk given three or four years ago is probably useful in graduate school but it does not keep you current with my research into Google’s technical activities and services.
Great to know that someone knows I give public talks, use pictures of Godzilla for laughs, and draw attention to the need for each online user to be aware of log files.
Stephen E Arnold, April 10, 2010
No one paid me to write this. I don’t even get royalties from my publishers anymore.
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