If I were Google's CEO, I'd build a transparent, Internet-driven political election infrastructure. Why? First, having regular, fair, accountable elections is a problem that all countries in the world face. Second, the problem I just described has a technical solution. Third, only a company with tremendous resources like Google could successfully battle the entrenched, questionable powers that control many of these elections and the vote counting therein.
What's in this for Google? Users. Data. Brand awareness with every dang voter in the world. Incredible PR. Continued support of that whole 'do no evil' thing.
Of course, there are some catches here. The system has be to completely open. As a citizen, I should be able to audit every part of this whenever I want. Second, you'd have to abstain from all political contributions. People counting the votes can't have a preference or a vested interest in one part over the other. I'm sure there are more that I haven't thought of.
It'd be a tremendous investment on Google's part, but it has the potential for some truly world-changing technology.
Nitpick: even Google can't solve 'watchful husband' and 'untrustworthy administrator' problems. I prefer my electoral systems to be distributed, cumbersome and adversarially supervised.
Comments
If I were Google's CEO, I'd build a transparent, Internet-driven political election infrastructure. Why? First, having regular, fair, accountable elections is a problem that all countries in the world face. Second, the problem I just described has a technical solution. Third, only a company with tremendous resources like Google could successfully battle the entrenched, questionable powers that control many of these elections and the vote counting therein.
What's in this for Google? Users. Data. Brand awareness with every dang voter in the world. Incredible PR. Continued support of that whole 'do no evil' thing.
Of course, there are some catches here. The system has be to completely open. As a citizen, I should be able to audit every part of this whenever I want. Second, you'd have to abstain from all political contributions. People counting the votes can't have a preference or a vested interest in one part over the other. I'm sure there are more that I haven't thought of.
It'd be a tremendous investment on Google's part, but it has the potential for some truly world-changing technology.
Nitpick: even Google can't solve 'watchful husband' and 'untrustworthy administrator' problems. I prefer my electoral systems to be distributed, cumbersome and adversarially supervised.