Deep Search

Search engines – most obviously Google – lie at the heart of our digital lives. Their interfaces seem to be simple and neutral. Yet underneath operates a political philosophy, written in complex technical code. At stake is nothing less than how we, individually and collectively, find out about the world. “Deep Search is the most profound set of statements and questions yet on the new universal machine, the search engine. Knowledge about the networks and the means of sorting them starts from the grounds of politics, culture and the formation of life rather than what is simply technically or legally possible. This book demands to be used.” — Matthew Fuller, Goldsmiths, University of London, author of Media Ecologies “This collection gets to the heart of the most important issues concerning our global information ecosystem: Will the ‘soft power’ of one, two, or three corporations exert inordinate yet undetectable influence over what we consider important, beautiful, or true? What are the possibilities for resistance? What are the proper avenues for law, policy, and personal choices? This book walks us through these challenges like no other before it.” — Siva Vaidhyanathan, University of Virginia, author of The Googlization of Everything