Author(s): Randall Stross

Business

Google has a dream: to manage the entire world's information. They want access to every single bit of it they can - from news, to financial and historical data; from the content of books, films and TV, to a complete record of the Earth's surface; and most controversially, the statistics of our personal lives - from what we have been reading, to who we have been talking to, to what we have been buying and from where. If information is power then Google are fast becoming one of the world's most commanding forces. Google is almost evangelical in its belief that by realizing its vision, it will be fulfilling the promise of computing as envisioned by its founding developers. Others, however, are increasingly alarmed by the potential invasion of privacy that Google's vision might both entail and enable. With unprecedented access to the key players at Google HQ, Planet Google is a revelatory - and often alarming - behind-the-scenes investigation into Google's plans, and the implications of its mission for our future.