Google’s Unlimited Power?
Is Google the best thing to happen to the digital world, or the most worrying concentration of power in 20 years? Is its impressive array of new services and applications a godsend, or is such a singular portal of information creating an unhealthy over-reliance on one company?
In 2009, Google knows more about the world and its citizens than any other entity on the planet. Google knows where you are, which computers you regularly use and what you write about in your Gmail e-mails. It knows what you search for, what websites you like and why you like them. It already has a profile on you. It could, if it wanted, expand that profile to make lots more money.
“This amalgamation of user information in one entity with the power to cross-reference is astonishing,” said TJ McIntyre, lecturer in the UCD faculty of law.
“And there are risks of abuse. These range from internal risks, such as for commercial purposes or a corrupt insider scenario, to external risks involving governments seizing data as happened in China [with Yahoo].”
Imagine the following worst-case scenario: a health insurance company and a bank offer huge discounts to whoever will freely grant access to their search habits being made available for analysis. The health company wants to know whether you frequently research medicines or treatments for specific conditions. The bank wants to fine-tune its actuarial models by parsing web behaviour for clues to a person’s spending habits. Both institutions say that they will slash your bills.
Guess which single company holds the key to all the information? Google. In this example, Google could offer you the chance to agree to these companies’ access requests, given the financial benefits apparent to everyone involved, including the consumer. For many cash-strapped people, this cash-for-data proposition might appear difficult to turn down.
Is such a scenario unthinkable? Yes, according to Ronan Harris, Google Ireland’s director of sales and online operations.” You have to appreciate the business we’re in,” said Harris.” In order to continue this level of popularity, we have to maintain our users’ trust. The next search engine is literally one click away. We simply can’t afford to breach our users’ trust.”
In Google’s favour, it has introduced a plethora of new applications, almost al l of them free, in recent years. Internet users can now avail of word processing packages, spreadsheets, blogging services, maps, navigation and even voice services for free. There is now an alternative web browser (Chrome).There is even a launch date for an entirely new operating system – to be available for free – to compete with Windows, called Chrome OS.
In a world dominated by Microsoft, Apple and other premium services, Google has introduced innovative new products for a fraction of the price.
It has also done more than any other single entity to create a’ cloud’ that more and more people are willing to use as their principal computing resource. But even here, some prospective business users have qualms.
“Where is the data? Who actually has access to it?” said Michele Neylon, owner of Blacknight Solutions, a Carlow based web-hosting company.” This might not worry a lot of people, but Google is a US company and bound by US law, and the Patriot Act is a horribly broad piece of legislation. I personally handle a lot of documents that are confidential and contain very sensitive data.”
This feeds into another concern that some business users have: if Google goes down, so does a lot of one’s business tools. Such a situation occurred earlier this year, when access to Google’s applications was cut off for several hours. Google’s response was poor. For hours, it was completely uncontactable (partly because its e-mail systems are based in Gmail).
“Google Docs are relatively new for us,” said Harris. “We’re still learning about some of the issues that are coming up and some of the needs that people have, especially in business. We’re working very hard on meeting service level obligations we have under those terms.”
By its very nature, Google has a disruptive effect on traditional media formats. Many rejoice in this. But some feel that it is a juggernaut that is unfairly bullying content creators out of existence.
Two weeks ago, the Italian competition authority began investigating whether Google was coercing Italian newspapers into allowing it to access their content. Several publications have alleged that, if they ask to be removed from Google’s News Search facility – which draws traffic away from their own websites – they are then being denied inclusion in Google’s search engine results.
Google denies the accusation. But the fact that the claims are being investigated by civil authorities highlights the unusual power that Google wields on the flow of information. Ultimately, the newspapers will relent. They know that, if you’re not on Google, you’re nowhere. This creates its own dark side.
“In any scenario where a single entity is so completely dominant, there is a risk that decisions taken by it can have a disproportionate effect on the ecosystem and the whole world,” said McIntyre.” If Google decides to delist someone for whatever reason, such as it thinks that the site may mistakenly be a malware site, all of a sudden that website can vanish from the internet.”
But how can this be dealt with? One emerging school of thought is to treat search engines as utilities – and regulate them as such.
“If this were the case, some obligations should be placed on them,” said McIntyre.” For example, maybe search engines should have to publish the criteria they use for rankings, along with guidance as to who they will or won’t index.”
But is this fair on Google? Surely it is simply a successful private company that has exceeded al l expectations? “The suggestion that nobody’s forcing you to use it, that you do have other options, is only partly true,” said.” Most people on the internet use Google, and that means many organisations which are listed on Google rely heavily on it.”
