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Google Says Data is More Like Sunlight Than Oil (businessinsider.com)
Google wants to popularize a more upbeat way of describing data: It's more like sunlight than oil. From a report: Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday morning, Google's chief financial officer, Ruth Porat, said that "data is more like sunlight than oil," adding, "It is like sunshine -- we keep using it, and it keeps regenerating." It's a twist on the well-known phrase "data is the new oil," meaning the world's most valuable resource is information rather than petroleum. Like the oil barons who preceded them, Silicon Valley titans such as Google, Facebook, and Amazon have risen quickly to profit from this new resource and even control its flow. And in another echo of history, regulators are eyeing the industry.
Sunlight eh... I guess that makes Google a melanoma?
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More like farts. We generate a lot of them and they aren't particularly valuable to us, but we still don't want companies to come and harvest them from us.
I personally don't care if someone harvests my farts. I'd like to think that my farts were making someone's life better somehow.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Mmmm well depends on the way my farts are harvested. Is it by forcing a tube in my a-hole? Or standing by and waiting for my farts to come out?
The way Google, Amazon et. al. are doing it is more like the tube in the ass method. They force a device on (or into) you and take whatever they want (or well, they take everything and filter out. Or not.)