Google and the Cloak of Invisibility.
August 25, 2009
A few days ago Adam wrote – Welcome to Google-world. In this post Adam expressed some of his concerns about the dominance of Google. Today the NZ Herald carries this article from the UK Observer on how Google can make you invisible. As ever life is stranger than fiction, in J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books young Harry has the Cloak of Invisibility, which he dons when he needs to disappear. In life Google just disappears you from the virtual world it would appear.
There is something worrying when people may assume you do not exist if you are not on Google. Reminds me of scenes from Joseph Heller’s novel Catch 22.
So maybe Bing has a future! Or maybe we should just get a life!
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Joseph Heller and Catch 22?
I think you mean George Orwell and 1984! Winston Smith (no relation I assume?) erased people all the time.
There is a scene in Catch 22 where a plane crashes and everyone assumes that a character was on the plane, yet he is in fact on the beach with them, but they ignore that fact and assume he no longer exists.
That seemed analogous to existing in reality but no longer existing on the web.