Matt O’Hanley
Not too long ago there were many search engines of comparable popularity being used by the common person, however this amount has dwindled down to only a handful of search engines with a substantial piece of the surfer pie, the largest of which providing 75 percent of external website referrals. When one company has that large a share in a market there are reasons to get nervous. The article “Google as big brother” is an attempt by the author to expose the reader to some of the disadvantages as well as threats of the near monopolization of internet search engines by google.com.
The author begins his rant simply by comparing the three search engines which are, in his opinion, the most likely to be competitive with Google in the future. He talks about the quality of the algorithms, advertising and what the companies behind these engines need to do to in order to take themselves to the next level and step into the ring with Google.
If none of these companies can compete with Google then he fears the end of the internet as we know it. Indeed the internet will be a very different place with the control of internet traffic being in the hands of a single company. One major gripe the author has with Google concerns the way in which the top sites are chosen. Google uses an algorithm that ranks more powerful sites higher in its searches which reduces the quality of the search in favor of further strengthening already powerful sites. Also since virtually the only way for a website to gain popularity is through Google, this allows Google to choose which sites they wish to display. Presently this problem generally effects websites which have broken the rules set in place by Google, but in the future this could theoretically give them the power to choose which websites users can visit .If the internet is a gateway through which people communicate information, then Google will be the gatekeeper.
In today’s world information is power and Google has enough information about it’s users to make even the strongest atomic bomb look like a firecracker in comparison. According to the author Google stores information about it’s users each and every time they visit. The way it works is that when you connect to Google it gives your computer a cookie, but these aren’t the cookies that your grandma makes, these are the cookies that assign an id number to your computer so that information about the time and date, your ip address, your browser configuration and what you searched for when you visited. Google also keeps this information in it’s data banks for an indefinite amount of time and won’t say why they need it. This situation puts the consumer at a greater risk for the problems which have plagued the internet since it’s inception, there is a lot that a hacker can do or steal from a consumer with the information being hoarded by Google and if one of them can break into Google’s data banks they would have access to the private information of the millions of people who visit Google every day, most of which have no idea that this data is even being recorded.
The author also points out that in the post 9/11 world this information is highly susceptible to being disseminated to the federal government. Google currently has no policy in place to protect any of this information from the government and has actually hired at least one ex N.S.A. employee.
Granted that they haven’t given the government any of this information yet, the author believes that sooner or later government officials are going to find a way to access it, destroying the privacy of not only the millions of American citizens who use Google, but also people from all around the world. He believes that now is the time that Google needs to set into place policies which will protect the huge load of information which Google has the responsibility to protect.
I was glad to have read this article. Before reading it I had no idea about the amount of information which was being stored every time I visited Google. I also wasn’t aware of the portion of internet traffic that is channeled through Google. I believe that this much power should not be given to a single company and usually, the American government agrees, breaking up monopolies has been a government priority since long before rich uncle penny bags put up hotels on boardwalk and park place, but in this case it seems that the government either doesn’t think that a 75 percent share of the market is a monopoly, Google hasn’t broken any anti-monopoly laws or they can see some benefit from allowing the Google juggernaut to keep it’s power. Granted that I am only speculating, I think that under normal circumstances the government would step in and force Google to set up policies to protect it’s users information or have broken the company up a long time ago but in this post 9/11 world one has to question the governments actions concerning our privacy rights. If we want to keep the rights that we grew up with than we need to look deeply into our governments actions and ask ourselves if they are trying to take them away.
