Desde Boing Boing leo la entrevista con Cory Doctorow que The Wall Street Journal acaba de publicar al hilo del relato Scroogled que le encargaron a Doctorow con el siguiente punto de partida: "Escribe un relato sobre el día en que Google se convirtió en malvado".

In science-fiction author Cory Doctorow’s short story "Scroogled", a woman shrugs when she sees "Immigration–Powered by Google" on an airport sign, but that’s just the beginning of the search giant’s presence in a not-too-distant future.

The story, published in Radar Magazine’s latest issue, envisions a world in which Google turns into Big Brother. Customs agents grill travelers about their search queries, public places are swept by webcams and officials look for terrorist connections in social-networking sites. All of this is made possible by Google’s powerful search tools and the company’s willingness to share its trove of personal data with the government.

El relato ha sido publicado bajo licencia Creative Commons en Radar Magazine. En la entrevista, Doctorow contesta a una pregunta en la que el periodista le dice si hay señales de que Google realmente pueda hacer eso, si hay algo que le preocupe realmente por parte de Google:

WSJ.com: Are there signs of that at Google? Are they doing something that concerns you?
Mr. Doctorow: Sure, absolutely, there have been lots of signs of that. I mean, one of the things that I think is in Google’s DNA is a real tension about, on the one hand, being good to people, but on the other hand, acquiring as much information about them as they can, under the rubric that it allows them to be better to people.
And it does, a lot of the time. There are lots of ways in which Google knowing more about you makes Google better for you. But without much regard to what’s happening in the world around us, in an era in which the national security apparatus has turned into a kind of lumbering, savage, giant toddler, it behooves us to not leave things within arm’s reach that it might stick in its mouth. And that includes things like my search history. And I’d prefer that Google not be storing a lot of that stuff, especially today, especially after Patriot [Act] and so on. They’re inviting abuse, I think, by doing that. The steps you don’t save can’t be subpoenaed. And by saving them, Google is inviting a subpoena.
So Google’s always had this kind of "We will collect all your information, and it will belong to us, and you won’t be able to take it away, but it’s OK because we’ll only do good things for you" attitude, and that’s a bit of a problem.

Así comienza el relato:

Greg landed at San Francisco International Airport at 8 p.m., but by the time he’d made it to the front of the customs line, it was after midnight. He’d emerged from first class, brown as a nut, unshaven, and loose-limbed after a month on the beach in Cabo (scuba diving three days a week, seducing French college girls the rest of the time). When he’d left the city a month before, he’d been a stoop-shouldered, potbellied wreck. Now he was a bronze god, drawing admiring glances from the stews at the front of the cabin.

Four hours later in the customs line, he’d slid from god back to man. His slight buzz had worn off, sweat ran down the crack of his ass, and his shoulders and neck were so tense his upper back felt like a tennis racket. The batteries on his iPod had long since died, leaving him with nothing to do except eavesdrop on the middle-age couple ahead of him.

"The marvels of modern technology," said the woman, shrugging at a nearby sign: Immigration—Powered by Google.

Leer el relato Scroogled completo