The Googlization of Surveillance
Who is watching? Why should we worry? These questions, among others, are asked by SIVA VAIDHYANATHAN, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, in his recently published tome The Googlization of Everything — and Why We Should Worry. Using Google Street View as the prime example and case study, Dr. Vaidhyanathan explores the ways and means through which Google engineers and justifies its systems of surveillance around the world. Despite proclaiming cultural sensitivity, Google engages in a “one-size-fits-all” model of privacy — and the defaults are always set to Google’s advantage. In addition to discussing his book, Dr. Vaidhyanathan will introduce the notion of “infrastructural imperialism” to describe how Google goes about managing its relations with users and states around the world.
Speakers
Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar at the University of Virginia. He is the author of The Googlization of Everything — and Why We Should Worry from the University of California Press, published in 2011. He has written two previous books: Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How it Threatens Creativity (New York University Press, 2001) and The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash between Freedom and Control is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System (Basic Books, 2004). He also co-edited (with Carolyn de la Pena) the collection, Rewiring the Nation: The Place of Technology in American Studies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007). Vaidhyanathan has written for many periodicals, including American Scholar, Dissent, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine, MSNBC.COM, Salon.com, openDemocracy.net, BookForum, Columbia Journalism Review, and The Nation. After five years as a professional journalist, he earned a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin. Vaidhyanathan has taught at Wesleyan University, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Columbia University, New York University, and is now a professor of Media Studies and Law at the University of Virginia. He is also a fellow at the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.
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