Book review: Planet Google

WHAT does Google do?

It enables you to search for things on the web, and you can do it for free. What does Google get back? Well, over time, Google gets to know how you think, so it can offer you ads that you're more likely to respond to.

And when you respond to some of them, it gets to know you even better, in a way that is self-reinforcing. So in this age of information, Google has found a way of increasing the quality of the information it collects by increasing the quantity, which is pretty mind-blowing. It's like modern-day alchemy, and Stross tells the story well.