Search is the way we now live. With the Society of the Query conference – Stop Searching, Start Questioning -, the Institute of Network Cultures aimed to critically reflect on the information society and the dominant role of the search engine in our culture. Although the focus was “the query in general”, the debate on Googliation and whether “Google is evil” was common throughout the conference. In the opening session Geert Lovink even mused, “We were going to call this the anti-Google conference.”

Below are five articles I contributed to the Society of the Query’s blog:

1) Siva Vaidhyanathan on Google Street View & Googlization
For Vaidhyanathan the biggest problem with Google is that as it expands into more parts of the world that are less proficient, and less digitally inclined, there will be more examples of friction and harm because more people are going to lack the awareness to cleanse their record. He asserted,”We in this room are not likely to be harmed by Google because all of us in this room are part of a techno-cosmopolitan elite. Only the elite and proficient get to opt out.” [read more]

2) Lev Manovich: Studying Culture With Search Algorithms
New media theorist Lev Manovich summarized his latest contribution to the field of software studies: cultural analytics. Whereas traditional cultural analysis relies on real-world resources (human interpretation and physical storage), cultural analytics relies on the computer and search algorithms in order to discern and interpret culture.  [read more]

3) Yann Moulier Boutang asks, “Are we all just Google’s worker bees?”
What Google is selling is not an ordinary service, but a meta-service, one that depends on human contribution. He likens this human activity to that of the worker bee, and the economy of Google is dependent on the pollination of these bees. [read more]

4) Does privacy still exist in an environment of search?
What most people don’t know is that EU law grants users the right to access any personal data stored about them. Joris van Hoboken’s research investigates the impact of legal norms on the users’ freedom. [read more]

5) Matthew Fuller: Search Engine Alternatives
Matthew Fuller welcomed a cast of “alternative search engines” that offer some variety to the classic retrieval model of search. [read more]

All photos courtesy Anne Helmond and her wonderful Flickr photostream.