(2007-10-01) Scroogled

Cory Doctorow imagines how Evil Google can get. No, I'm not looking at your searches," the man said in a mocking whine. "That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching.... "Top of the light pole there; don't look," she said. "That's one of our Municipal Wifi access points. Wide-angle WebCam. Face away from it when you talk."... "We brokered a compromise with the DHS (Homeland Security)," she said, reaching for the milk. "They agreed to stop fishing through our search records, and we agreed to let them see what ads got displayed for users."... Once you get pulled aside for secondary at the border, you become a "person of interest" - -and they never, ever let up. They'll scan webcams for your face and gait. Read your mail. Monitor your searches."... "DontBeEvil? Come on, Greg. Our lobbying group is that same bunch of crypto-fascists that tried to Swift Boat John Kerry. We popped our evil cherry a long time ago."... "It started in China," she went on, finally. "Once we moved our servers onto the mainland, they went under Chinese jurisdiction."... Did you know if you have 15 Orkut (Social Networking/Meta Data) buddies, it's statistically certain that you're no more than three steps to someone who's contributed money to a "terrorist" cause?... "My parents left East Germany in '65. They used to tell me about the Stasi. The Secret Police would put everything about you in your file, if you told an unpatriotic joke, whatever. Whether they meant it or not, what Google has created is no different." And you thought 2007-05-01-CanadianBlockedFromUsDrugGoogle was scary....

Mar'2008: I just discovered that DailyLit has this.