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I just listened to the YouTube 'AD' for Arizona State's switch to Goggle for email and Goggle Apps.  I say Ad because Google owns YouTube and this clearly was a professionally done, commercial advertisement.  I also noticed that the next two choices of YouTube videos presented to me were "Interviewing for a job at Google" and "Why use Gmail".  Oh yeah, then came "real sexy naked girls hot webcam porn".  I'm not kidding, that's what came next.

Clearly the switch to Google would save the university significant (read boat loads of) money and provide new capabilites for FREE.  I find it interesting that near the end he likens getting these capabilities to being able to incorporate alien technology into their university community.

Hmmm, and what do the aliens want from us?  Not much, only a legal contract for unfettered logging and search of our correspondence, the documents we choose to store on their space or transmit using their systems, and our activity and behavior patterns while connected to their systems. 

Google continues to grow its capabilites because corporations and governments are willing to pay large sums of money to obtain these search results or demographic analyses.  Governments are also eager to issue legal demands to obtain what they cannot buy.

I for one, think the time has come for MSU to switch to a system that could provide potential employers of MSU graduates (for a fee) with demographics about whether our students spend more time searching the MSU library system, online sports scores, or visiting the High Times web site.  If Arizona State's student behavior has better demographics maybe that employer should just skip MSU and attend AZ State's job fair instead.  And just think about the possible synergies of using realtime demographics of on campus activity for direct online marketing to MSU students.  Now my tuition dollars not only buy me an education but can also funnel virtual salepeople directly to my MSU-branded Goggle online presence.  That's way cool.

Be careful what you wish for.  Genies do not easily go back into their bottles.

Bob Kriegel
systems analyst
Dept. of Animal Science, MSU

not only is grey the new black, but search is the new privacy