Google must be the most ambitious company in the world. Its stated goal, "to

游客2023-08-16  35

问题     Google must be the most ambitious company in the world. Its stated goal, "to organize the world’ s information and make it universally accessible and useful," deliberately omits the word "web" to indicate that the company is reaching for absolutely all information everywhere and in every form. From books to health records and videos, from your friendships to your click patterns and physical location, Google wants to know. To some people this sounds uplifting, with promises of free access to knowledge and help in managing our daily lives. To others, it is somewhat like another Big Brother, no less frightening than its totalitarian(极权主义的)ancestors for being in the private information.
    Randall Stross, a journalist at the New York Times, does a good job of analyzing this unbounded ambition in his book "Planet Google". One chapter is about the huge data centers that Google is building with a view to storing all that information, another about the sets of rules at the heart of its web search and advertising technology, another about its approach to information bound in books, its vision for geographical information and so forth. He is at his best when explaining how Google’s mission casually but fatally smashes into long-existing institutions such as, say, copyright law or privacy norms.
    And yet, it’s puzzling that he mostly omits the most fascinating component of Google, its people. Google is what it is because of its two founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who see themselves as kindly elites and embody the limitless optimism about science, technology and human nature that is native to Silicon Valley. The world is perfectible, and they are the ones who will do much of the perfecting, provided you let them.
    Brin and Page set out to create a company and an entire culture in their image. From the start, they professed that they would innovate as much in managing—rewarding, feeding, motivating, entertaining and even transporting(via Wi-Fi-enabled free shuttle buses)their employees—as they do in internet technology. If Google is in danger of becoming a caricature(讽刺画), this is first apparent here—in the over-engineered day-care centers, the Shiatsu massages and kombucha teas(康普茶). In reality Googlers are as prone to power struggle and office politics as anyone else.
    None of that makes it into Mr Stross’ account, which at times reads like a diligent summary of news articles. At those moments, "Planet Google" takes a risk similar to trying to board a speeding train: the Google story changes so fast that no book can stay up to date for long. Even so, a sober description of this moment in Google’s quest is welcome. Especially since Google fully expects, as its chief executive, Eric Schmidt, says at the end of the book, to take 300 years completing it. [br] According to Randall Stross, Google’s influence on copyright law or privacy norms is _____.

选项 A、inevitable
B、undeniable
C、long-lasting
D、unintentional

答案 D

解析 第2段末句讲到,谷歌的使命虽是漫不经心地,但却给予长期存在的制度习俗带来致命的打击,例如版权法和隐私规范。D“非故意的”与句中causally“偶然地”意思相近,为本题答案。选项C与句中long-existing意思接近,但它描述的是institutions,故排除。
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