At the US Association of National Advertiser's annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona, Google's Eric Schmidt said that "We did a math exercise and the answer was 300 years". "The answer is it's going to be a very long time".

Google right now claims they have 170 terabytes indexed so far, and did not discuss how they came up with the 300 year number. One can only speculate what their goal of indexing is: are they trying to index all the information available today in 2005, or are they including information to index today in addition to what will be added tomorrow.

One has to wonder, however, if all this indexing is good. I have mentioned in columns past about "Googlebombing" where people plant false information into the database to direct people in false directions to make a political statement (remember searching for "miserable failure" and being sent to George Bush's website, where the words do not exist). Google has professed a policy to NOT correct these obvious re-directions, so I would have to conclude that the database has integrity issues.

We have also seen Google Earth, and all those nice pictures from space. Current pictures of defense installations and other sensitive areas can be inviting to terrorist threats. It also could cause a privacy issue for private property. As resolution technology increases, are we going to reach a point that we can Google a picture of someone's house overhead, and see them sunbathing?

When I think of Google, I see a company out of control, exposing things to the public that perhaps should be thought about before going online. I also think of Garbage's theme song to "The World is Not Enough". The Lyrics are here: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/g/garbage/57930.html go think about it and come up with your own conclusion.

Catch you next time. :)

The 'miserable faliure' thing is funny, I just typed it in now. Straight to 'George W Bush's Biography Page'.

I see a company bent on global hegemony over all information, a company doing its utmost to destroy all competition where it comes to the spreading and collection of data with the ultimate goal of being able to control all thought and thereby the actions of all mankind.

If they think that'll take them another 300 years to achieve I can breathe a little easier as I do plan to not be around by then, or else so pissed off that I no longer want to have any information and started living as a recluse in a mountain cabin somewhere :)

http://www.robinsloan.com/epic/ the future if Google have their way...

The 'miserable faliure' thing is funny, I just typed it in now. Straight to 'George W Bush's Biography Page'.

Look at what's second.

J_

Let me get this straight -- google is indexing stuff that is already online and in public domain. So tell me, how is it going to get stuff not online or in classified/confidential databases? I fail to see how that can happen. How can google index something that is only available in paper form?

How can google index something that is only available in paper form?

Easy. Robot scanners with remote page-flipping technology. A small thing in a couple hundred years :)

Above also mentioned that they are providing pictures in google earth, well FYI: those images were already available via other websites like 5 years ago. Google just added them to an application and their maps site.

Everything that google has published has already been available to the world for public view, it just hasn't been as easy to access. I see no problem in making something easier to access if it is already public, if you wish to hide something, that is why there are password protected sites etc.

Another thing, in regards to the google images in google earth, I don't know if you have noticed, but the picture over my house is at least 7 years old, as the car sitting in front of my house was sold 7 years ago.

I highly doubt this will really be an issue.

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