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Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Part 023

Here's part twenty-three of my reading of my 2005 novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

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Search is too important to leave to one company – even Google

The Guardian

Guardian column on search as an open project

In my latest Guardian column, "Search is too important to leave to one company – even Google," I make the case that Google's algorithms are editorial decisions, and that so much editorial power is better vested in big, transparent, public entities than a few giant private concerns:

It's a terrible idea to vest this much power with one company, even one as fun, user-centered and technologically excellent as Google. It's too much power for a handful of companies to wield.

The question of what we can and can't see when we go hunting for answers demands a transparent, participatory solution. There's no dictator benevolent enough to entrust with the power to determine our political, commercial, social and ideological agenda. This is one for The People.

Put that way, it's obvious: if search engines set the public agenda, they should be public. What's not obvious is how to make such a thing.

Search is too important to leave to one company – even Google

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Part 022

Here's part twenty-two of my reading of my 2005 novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town.

MP3 Link

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