In today’s digital world of networking and information access, corporate interests that are able to control and manage the flow of information place themselves in immensely powerful positions – far more powerful than any State, government or traditional Corporation. Since its introduction – only two decades ago – the Internet has become an indispensable feature of our lives. In fact, if the plug was pulled on the net the world as we know it would come to a standstill, such is the importance of the flow of information today.
Into this massive potential power sphere/space, enter a smart Russian kid and friends who developed a general Search Engine and offered it free to users (in order to capture a very sleepy market). The open source community was initially pleased as the spirit of Google seemed at the time to embrace the ethics of free and open access, BUT NOT FOR LONG!
Today, Google has proven itself to be a self-interested extremely dangerous totalitarian presence in the world yet its practices remain largely unscrutinised! Its 'new ethic' of pandering to the wishes of any State allow it to spread its tentacles into areas that affect all our lives. The reader will note that Google has no social conscience or moral standard whatsoever, Google happily acquiesced to the ‘special requirements’ of the Chinese dictatorship and other governments known for their abysmal human rights and civil liberties record.
Google now supplies the search records of individual users to government agencies and other bureaus, it is clear this unsavoury practice does not advantage the individual user, in some cases citizens risk incarceration or even execution if this information is made available to certain governments – Google already has blood on its hands!
The myth of a level playing field in relation to search rankings/exposure has been blasted by Google’s now known interventionist practices; site rankings are manually manipulated according to positive financial or negative political considerations. A recent case in Australia exposed the myth of fair practice in Google searches -- specific site searches were re-directed to a paying customer rather than to the literal/exact site. Google is easily able to advantage or disadvantage any site if it wishes or if authorities request it.
Google’s ambition to digitise every major text on the planet has been temporarily curtailed – but for how long? As Google continues to grow fat on its ever-increasing revenues, its power increases as a result – soon smaller independent companies may not able to withstand the huge financial pressure from the information juggernaut. Nothing less than total control of all information is Google’s ambition and company ideal!
The sleepy market that allowed Google to grow disproportionately and at speed is also extremely slow to wake to the fact that Google’s practices remain beyond accountability, most of its sordid practices are shrouded in secrecy or hidden behind existing corporate privacy laws, which are entirely inappropriate when dealing with public information management companies such as Google!
More court actions and greater accountability are required to allow for a freer and fairer market place and eliminate sordid or unfair practices. Companies should not be allowed to threaten or manipulate the free flow of information or to tamper with PUBLIC knowledge for their own personal gain.
IT professionals and geeks alike are acutely aware of the power that Google is able to wield; its ever increasing wealth endow it with the ability to buy whatever it desires and to remain largely unaccountable to outside regulators.
A legal requirement to justify any obvious manipulation of search results, would be a good start.
The geek community, hackers, IT professionals, user groups and every citizen who believes that (unhindered) public information access is a right not a privilege are united in their call for accountability.
In the immortal words of Uncle Ho, now directed at Google, “you will never succeed!”
by ABC via rialator 2007-09-15 09:44:02
[The public face of $US164 billion dollar Google. The largest Search Engine in the world continues unimpaired in its pursuit to corporatise/privatise public information. Ed.]
Born 10 years ago, the Google Internet search engine has grown into the electronic centre of human knowledge by indexing billions of web pages as well as images, books and videos.
On September 15, 1997 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two 24-year-old Stanford University students, registered the domain name of "google.com."
The word is a variation of 'googol,' which refers to the number 10 to the power of 100, a term popularised by US mathematician Edward Kasner.
Mr Page and Mr Brin incorporated Google one year later, on September 7, 1998, in a household garage in northern California.
News of Google spread largely thanks to the efficient way the search engine classified results through algorithms, and it quickly became one of the most used methods to find information on the Internet.
From the beginning Mr Page and Mr Brin considered their role as global Internet researchers was crucial.
"We thought research was really important," said Mr Brin in a recent interview.
"The other search engines stopped research on search. They thought that 'if our search engine is only 85 per cent as good as the next guy, it's good enough for us'."
To search for Internet documents it is necessary to permanently contact each site and memorise its pages, a colossal task for the Google data bank, which is constantly renewed, allowing the users to search for key words.
Google needs several weeks to troll the Internet and renew its data bank.
Soon after its launch this search engine became a motor that "absorbed" web pages across the Internet, at a rate of billions per day.
Google has become the most popular Internet search engine in the world outside of China, Japan and Russia, handling more than 500 million visits a day.
In 2000 Google began to sell ads linked to key words. At the time, as the dot-com bubble was bursting and scores of web-based operations were declaring bankruptcy, Google was making a healthy profit.
When Google went public in August 2004 its shares initially sold at $US85. Today its shares are valued at $US525, and Google has a stock market value worth some $US164 billion.
In 2006 Google reached $US13.4 billion in revenue - the third part based on Internet ads - and profits of $US3.7 billion.
In the past years Google has expanded at a breakneck pace, and currently has some 13,700 employees.
The company thrives on a culture of innovation: the best example is that it asks employees to dedicate 20 per cent of their time to develop ideas for the company.
Mr Page and Mr Brin, now in their mid 30s, each have some $US16 billion in personal wealth.
In 2006 Google bought YouTube, the largest and most popular video exchange website, and soon after bought DoubleClick, one of the Internet's most powerful ad services.
Google also launched free e-mail - Gmail - as well as a word processing program, picture editing programs and a calender that competes directly with products from software giant Microsoft.
Despite the company motto of "Don't be Evil," it seems that the Google's ubiquitous presence increasingly generates hostility. Both Google and YouTube have been sued by media groups that charge that they have stolen content.
Its ads are directed at a very specific public based on their Internet searches.
Google's photographing of city streets has also been criticised, but also admired and widely used.
-AFP
© 2007 ABC
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/15/2033690.htm