Google As Big Brother?

From the Search Engine Watch Blog...

Google Submits Patent for Psychological Profiling

Frank Watson at Search Engine Watch is really voicing his opinion in this post, claiming "it's all over," as Google ventures closer to becoming the incarnation of Big Brother.

Let me say first that this is an impressive new use of technology, and the only real surprise to it is that Google did not do this sooner. If it behooves them to know people's tendencies (obviously, it would behoove any marketer), and they are able to do this from using the existing technology, then how do we know they haven't already been doing this for some time now, and are just now submitting the patent for it? Perhaps they've been doing it with imperfect methods until now, and now that they've got everything down, they're trying to patent it. Makes sense to me.

However, this does come with something of a "slippery slope" realization. Is this the "slippery slope," from which it would be difficult - disasterous, even - to return? Remember our current dependence on foreign oil, as an example of another slippery slope, up from which it would be possible, but economically disastrous at our current point, to climb. Only when it is economically less feasible in the short run to continue in our current dependence on foreign oil and fossil fuels will be change course.

So, apply this to a Big Brother concept. Certainly, as the science fiction writer said, when and if we ever let ourselves me overtaken by our machines, we will quite possibly look back on the time when the takeover initially occurred, and recall that it happened so fast, and with so much initial advantage to us, that it was irresistible, and even unrecognizable, unanticipated. At that point, it will most likely be possible to revert, at least theoretically, but so costly and disadvantageous that to do so would be certain economic disaster.