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Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google Inc. [Hardcover]

Scott Cleland , Ira Brodsky
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 10, 2011
This is the other side of the Google story. In Search & Destroy, Google expert Scott Cleland, shows that the world's most powerful company is not who it pretends to be.

Google pretends to be a harmless lamb, but chose a full-size model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex as its mascot. Beware the T-Rex in sheep's clothing.

Google has acquired far more information, both public and private, and has invented more ways to use it, than anyone in history. Information is power, and in Google's case, it's the power to influence and control virtually everything the Internet touches. Google's power is largely unchecked, unaccountable and grossly underestimated. Google is the Internet's lone superpower, the new master of the digital information universe. And Google's power depends almost entirely on the blind trust it has gained through masterful duplicity. Google routinely says one thing and does another.

Cleland proves the world's #1 brand untrustworthy. He exposes the unethical company hiding behind a Don't Be Evil slogan. He uncovers Google's hidden political agenda. And he reveals how Google's famed mission to organize the world's information is destructive and wrong. Cleland is the first to critically examine where Google is leading us, explain why we don t want to go there, and propose straightforward solutions.

Google's unprecedented centralization of power over the world's information is corrupting both Google and the Internet, a natural result of unchecked power. Google is evolving from an information servant to master, from working for users, to making users work for the Internet behemoth.

Search & Destroy conclusively demonstrates that Google's goal is to change the world by influencing and controlling information access. Ultimately, Google's immense unchecked power is destructive precisely because Google is so shockingly-political, unethical and untrustworthy.


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Product Details

  • Hardcover: 329 pages
  • Publisher: Telescope Books; 1 edition (May 10, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0980038324
  • ISBN-13: 978-0980038323
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Scott Cleland's new book explains what getting 'Googled' really means having your private information exploited, your personal security compromised, your market choices eliminated, and your naive trust in the company's public pronouncements betrayed. Cleland's perspective will resonate most with conservatives and libertarians, but, in truth, every computer user needs to read this book before clicking on the Google site again." - Gary Reback, author of Free The Market! and the antitrust lawyer who spearheaded the Federal Government's case against Microsoft in the 1990s

A courageous and important book -- persuasively argued and well defended. - Ben Edelman, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School

There is no one that writes more incisively about Google than Scott Cleland. - Randolph May, President, Free State Foundation

--Expert testimonials

" Search & Destroy provides an eye-opening assessment of Google's 'free services' that will lead many to question their online choices." --- Roger Entner, Analyst & Founder, Recon Analytics

"Search and Destroy is an important book - for the first time it puts a spotlight on all the issues arising from Google's advertising and search dominance." --- Simon Buckingham, Founder of Appitalism

From the Author

TBD
--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 329 pages
  • Publisher: Telescope Books; 1 edition (May 10, 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0980038324
  • ISBN-13: 978-0980038323
  • Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Authors

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Some good points, but overall tedious and repetitive October 22, 2011
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I really enjoy reading books about internet companies, especially how they started, became successful etc. I am interested because I myself run a website that I hope to grow into something big some day. That said, I have been aware of some of the rumblings about problems with Google's influence as it turns from spunky startup into arrogant behemoth - the Microsoft of the 2000's, by some accounts. So I was interested to read this book, which purports to dig into the dark side of Google in some depth. And, to be fair, it does do that! However, I couldn't finish the book. Here's why: It's tedious and repetitive, like one huge single-note rant. In the eyes of this author, Google is completely and totally bad. Every single thing that Google does has a nefarious motive, to steal our privacy or dominate the world or squash competition. Now the really sad thing is that he does make some good points - Google does seem to be doing some of these things, either intentionally or not. But Scott Cleland really shoots himself in the foot by making it all just a bit too much like one of those homeless guys who stands on a street corner wearing a tinfoil hat, with the incredibly detailed sign telling us all about how the Bilderberg group is controlling our lives. When every single page, every single paragraph either starts or ends with yet another version of the statement "Google cannot be trusted", it just gets really old very quickly.

This single-minded rant goes off the rails on numerous occasions. For example, he talks about how Google runs its servers using Open Source software, and actually tries to portray this as being fundamentally insecure.
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14 of 16 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Almighty Googolosaurus Rex May 28, 2011
By FNell
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This work contains an important message that all should hear/read, but I found some of the content to be too repetitive. The author made his case on a particular topic/issue in one chapter, but does so again on the same topic/issue in subsequent chapters, with a little bit of extra information added. The book therefore contains less revelations than the length would suggest. Just when the book started to engage me at about 60% (on the Kindle) it ended. It was a bit of a frustrating read, but this does not mean the book should not be read. I strongly recommend it. I support the author's views on Google = "G-d" (omni-), and found the parallels with communism revealing. Google may be your friend today, but whoever controls it tomorrow may not be ...
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22 of 27 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Google's Corporate Ethics Challenged in New Book June 14, 2011
Format:Hardcover
Review of Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google, Inc., by Scott Cleland with Ira Brodsky, Telescope Books, St. Louis, Missouri, 2011, ISBN-10: 0980038324, $28.95, 329 pages.

Even paranoiacs have real enemies, goes the adage. I'm inclined to agree, especially after reading Search & Destroy: Why You Can't Trust Google, Inc., by Scott Cleland with Ira Brodsky.

The book adds heft to a shelf increasingly freighted with cautionary volumes about the perils the Internet poses to individual privacy, among other concerns. The book, while at times heavy-handed, details the authors' views that Google tramples individual privacy, violates intellectual property rights, and asserts undoe if not illegal influence on both political and economic processes.

Internet privacy has become a hot-button issue in Washington, and featured as the issue du jour of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) conducted its May 10 inaugural hearing, titled "Protecting Mobile Privacy: Your Smartphones, Tablets, Cell Phones and Your Privacy."

Additionally, legislators are scrambling to introduce Internet privacy laws, including the "Do Not Track Online Act of 2011," by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and the "Data Accountability and Trust Act" (HR 1707), by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL).

Multiple Threats to Privacy
Security violations affecting personal information are plentiful, including Apple's iOS4 operating system collecting and storing users' location information even when they tried to turn off location services, the Google Buzz social networking site sharing supposedly secure information upon its launch in 2010, and the hacking of 70 million Sony Playstation users' credit-card information in April.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars It should have been an article. August 18, 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
The topic is very important but the author repeats itself along the book in a very annoying way. If he had written an article, pouring the same ideas in a more concise way, it could've been great. Or maybe even a Kindle Single, smaller but more objective. He says the same ideas in a repetitive mantra becoming as much a brainwash as the ideas he's explaining.
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27 of 38 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Eye opening! May 11, 2011
Format:Hardcover
I have had my doubts about Google's motives for years, but it is so easy to be swayed by their array of products and services. This groundbreaking book has finally convinced me once and for all that Google is not to be blindly trusted. Search and Destroy is well researched and documented. Must read for all!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Oh my G--.!! This book is boring. June 26, 2012
By AW
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book is very informative and probably accurate, but it was so long and boring after slogging thru about 80% of it, I stopped reading it.
I never trusted Google to be honest or ethical and this book proves that it isn't. If this interests you, maybe you'd like to read it.
I would gladly sell this book back to Amazon in a heartbeat.
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Use this instead
I have refused to use Google for any reason, except on a VERY rare occassion to look at maps. I no longer use their mapping feature, since I have a portable GPS (Garmin Nuvi) in my car. Unlike the GPS feature that appears in EVERY CELLPHONE that can track and record your movements!! NO ONE has... Read more
May 18, 2011 by Joseph A. Nowak |  See all 2 posts
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