RubberBuzz || Akron Unleashed: The Google Gods

5.06.2005

The Google Gods

Europe hates Google since its so US-centric. I can see that. Now Google is starting an online library to make works and research available to the masses. Europe still hates that...

For Europeans, the fear is that the continent's contribution to the pillars of recorded knowledge will be crushed by a profit-oriented California company -- and may end up presenting a U.S.-centric version of the world's literary legacy.

Google's ambitions are grand -- if a bit more modest than the hostile corporate takeover of the tiller of world literature that many critics seem to be imagining.

The project, announced in December, involves scanning millions of books at the libraries of four universities -- Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and the University of Michigan -- as well as the New York Public Library and putting them online. It will take years to complete.

So great is the concern that six European leaders have jointly proposed creating a "European digital library" to counter the project by Google Print, as the new venture is known. Other countries are expected to come on board.

If Europe doesn't like Google, then they need build something better. People use Google because they like the results and they are innovative. When something better then Google comes around, people will stop using it.

The BJ :: Europeans fear Google cultural dominance

(joe :: The Google Gods)

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