Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Googleville on the Columbia
The most chilling article I have read in sometime appeared in last week's Willamette Week. Byron Beck has written a provocative account regarding Google's presence in The Dalles entitled Welcome to Googleville: America’s newest information superhighway begins On Oregon’s Silicon Prairie and it certainly opened my eyes.
Beck's tale is one of non-disclosure agreements, preferred utility rates and a company shrouded in secrecy. A couple years back Google has taken over the old Martin Marietta aluminum plant site and created a site where no one knows exactly what is happening inthis data center/server farm that was touted to bring 200 high paying jobs to the area.
Most telling in Beck's article is this quote from the Dalles' mayor Robb Van Cleave:
“The perception, at the time of negotiation with Google, by the local press and the public at large, was that a large employer was on the way, but that no one could talk about it because everyone involved in the negotiations—port, city, county and power officials, and over a dozen more people—had all signed nondisclosures,” says Van Cleave. “I felt strongly that if I didn’t sign the nondisclosure, I could still speak freely to the press and public about what was going on down at the port.”
The article indicates there has been some economic uptick in the area, particularly dramatic in real estate. But the question is at what price is all of this taking place. And why does it have to be so damned secret. No one knows what kinds of deal have been cut with the public utility company or how much power (and it is apparently a lot) Google uses.
Ironically, in a moment I will post this article to my server using technology Google owns. And I will likely have more than a few encounters with the technology that may be routed to that sleepy town 90 miles up river. But I wonder as Hillary, author of one of the comments on the website version of the article who writes: "So what we can expect is that every mothballed or closed aluminum plant site in the Northwest, once making strategic metal for defense, will become a data bank center because the power production, the sub stations, the power lines, are all in place." I am pleased Mr. Beck brought this story a bit more out in the open. Before, all I had known and heard was some coffee cooler talk about Google being in the area wih everyone's response as "Jobs. Isn't that nice?"
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:56 PM
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