Google Will Eat Itself (GWEI) might be an artistic statement, an economics project, a prank, a subversive attempt to take down “the man” or all of the above. But whatever its motivations, the creators of GWEI have sent a clear message about their feelings toward Google and online advertising. Little by little, a giant corporation can be disabled.
The idea is simple: Use Google’s own marketing practices against them. GWEI earns money by generating fraudulent clicks on Google ads on a series of hidden websites. With the money earned from clicks on the ads, the owners of GWEI “automatically” buy shares of Google.
By buying bits of Google through the company’s own advertising, the users have set up a model where Google “eats itself,” taking down the company from the inside out. The the owners of GWEI describe their project an “autocannibalistic model” where global advertisement mechanisms are forced into a “surreal click-based economic model.”
When they buy up all of Google through its own advertisements, the GWEI owners intend to hand over ownership of their Google Shares to the GTTP Ltd (otherwise known as the Google To The People Public Company.) The shares will then be distributed back to the users (people who clicked on the ads.)
But, Google executives can rest easy. At their present rate of expansion, the owners of GWEI expect to own all of Google 200,000 years from now. That should be plenty of time for Google to plan their counteroffensive.
(Google Will Eat Itself via Reddit via Boing Boing)
Published: Jun 7, 2011 12:14 pm