Most of us have known someone that changed for the worse when they became addicted to something harmful. Even bacteria on a dish is unable to grow continuously, eventually falling demise to it's own excrement. Is this the fate of Google? After all, the two guys who ran with their University mentors brilliant idea to implement a bayesian search engine to start Back Rub (the original idea behind Google) have not been running the pistons of the Google powerhouse for many years now. Google's originally transparent mission statement; to "organise the world's information" has slowly become opaque in a world that would rather be empowered to organise it's own information.
from The Age:
How Google became the indispensable frenemy
March 8, 2010 - 8:29AM
The search engine's public image is divided between the believers and those afraid of its overwhelming corporate power, reports Kelsey Munro.
It's the two-man start-up that in a few short years became a global colossus - the brand that became a verb. Like no other entity in the past 12 years, Google, founded by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, has transformed the world. Today it effectively owns the web through its dominance in online search and advertising. But the first signs of disenchantment are emerging in the world's love affair with Google, as the fun young upstart has grown into a corporate monolith sucking start-ups, consumers' personal data and competitors' market share into its vast orbit.
"The popular perception of Google as a friendly, harmless service is beginning to crack," says Adam Bunn, the head of search engine optimisation at Greenlight, a British consultancy. "The past year has seen it rile opposition from governments, writers, publishers and booksellers over Google Books, newspapers over Google News and privacy advocates."
As in politics, power breeds dissent. New competitors are greeting Google's expansion into their territories with hostility. The European Union has begun to push back against its dominance, demanding privacy restrictions on the StreetView service in Germany and Greece. An anti-trust complaint has been lodged with the European Commission, and an Italian court convicted Google executives of invasion of privacy over a user-posted video.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Photo: Getty Images
In Australia and Britain Google has raised hackles by funnelling revenue through its Irish subsidiary to minimise corporate tax. In the US a class action lawsuit by authors and copyright holders saw the company modify its Google Books service, and smaller competitors have launched anti-trust suits, cheered on by Microsoft. Like others whose business models are directly threatened by Google, Rupert Murdoch is muscling up for a fight.
Like the human chain of residents that blocked a Google Street View camera van from photographing their village in England last year, not everyone thinks Google and its mission to "organise the world's information" is benign, useful or even cute any more.
No.2 on Google's famous "10 things" list - "It's best to do one thing really, really well" - is looking like a distant memory. Some are wondering if No.6 - "You can make money without doing evil" - is following it into history.
To some, resistance from older companies, the public or regulators to Google's relentless expansion is something like a culture war.
"Google is a very young company and the staff are a very young demographic," says analyst Dr Steve Hodgkinson, from Ovum Australia. "They've grown up in the web 2.0 world; they're not looking at these things [business, privacy, copyright] in the same way that a bunch of ... older public servants would.
"They're genuinely coming from a different paradigm."
Dr Roger Clarke, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation, says, "They have computer scientists who think they're the smartest people in the world and everyone will love it like they do. It's not how the world works."
Google's public image is now split between the believers - those who "drink the Kool-Aid", in the words of a couple of industry insiders - and those who are scared of the corporation's overwhelming dominance and the potential for it to abuse its power.
On the one hand, it is viewed as a legitimate market leader that has earned its success through open competition and innovation, because it offers users all kinds of great free services and because its core product - Google search - is the best there is.
On the other hand, because it has become indispensable to any business with an online presence, and because it extends its commercial interests across different industries and collects ever more fine-grained data on its users, Google is making some people very nervous.
Arguably, it set itself up for a fall. You can't build a company with a founding tenet of doing no evil and aspire to world domination without encountering some fairly sharp contradictions.
"Google has grown so fast and people fear a company becoming so dominant in the market," says Professor Jim Macnamara from the University of Technology, Sydney. "I can tell you they're scared in Seattle, at Microsoft."
One Sydney web development professional, who did not want to be named because he does business with Google, says: "People are very scared of it. If you're not listed in Google, you're f---ed. But they keep changing the ground rules." Google regularly updates its secret search algorithm, which can dramatically affect a site's ranking, but says its searches are not rigged and sponsored links are clearly marked. (The EU anti-trust complaint alleges that Google has tweaked the algorithm to the detriment of small search competitors.)
That is not a concern for Jen McCormack, of Melbourne, who says she earns a six-figure income with Google's AdSense on her website, newagestore.com. "I have a passion that Google helped me turn into a healthy business. I definitely don't think them being big is detrimental."
Despite having an employee culture that has been the envy of all - beanbags and massages, the free in-house cafeteria, "20 per cent time" to work on pet projects - a growing number of web wonks believe Google has taken Microsoft's crown as the evil empire, seeing it as a multinational that has deliberately built a global business that is hard to compete with, sucking up small competitors and new technology.
Of course, there's nothing technically wrong with that, says Jennifer Wilson, director of the Project Factory, a multi-platform development company in Sydney and Britain. "It is what business strives to do all the time, but [it looks different] if you are in a very strong, almost unassailable position in a market."
In what sounded a little like sour grapes, this week Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, put Google's dominance down to incumbency, to getting there first, rather than its culture. Others put it down to acquisitions.
"Arguably their growth has been driven more by buying other companies than anything else," says Adam Bunn. "If you look at any of Google's major products, including the all-important AdWords and AdSense, they are usually either fully or in part based on a product Google acquired by buying a start-up."
Things began to sour with Google Books last year, an example of the blithe unilateralism which some argue increasingly characterises the company's approach. "They have since adjusted their strategy, but with Google Books they just started copying books, they didn't ask authors," says Macnamara. "It was only when they were legally challenged that they finally came to the negotiating table, and entered into an agreement with authors and copyright holders."
Privacy is another area of concern for non-believers. The company hasn't always helped that. In December Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, told CNBC, "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place ... The reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time." In this light, the company's data collection begins to look more sinister.
Gmail users may not know that they have signed up to let the company's software read their private emails to target advertising to them. Ads are matched to words in individual messages. "Is that abuse or did we agree to that?" says Wilson.
Technically, of course, users did. But Clarke argues that most don't know what they consented to.
A Google Australia spokeswoman points out that no human ever reads the emails - ads are targeted through an automatic software scan. "All information we gather is used in accordance with Google's privacy policy and helps Google improve your online experience," she says.
Christine Chen, a Google US spokeswoman, says it recognises some people have concerns with Google's information practices, including keeping users' search histories for 18 months.
"We're very clear as to what kind of data we're collecting and what we do with it, and we give people control over data that may be sensitive. Dashboard is an example of that." Google Dashboard is a widget which allows clued-in users to control their data and privacy settings.
Similarly, Google's Ads Preferences setting allows people to opt out of receiving targeted ads (they will still receive random ads). Yet most users prefer targeted ads, she says. Many users view Google's collection of their personal info as a trade-off for the benefit of their free products.
Concerns with Google centre on the question of whether it is now a monopoly and could turn "evil". It may not always retain its founders' best intentions. "That's what the regulators worry about," says Hodgkinson. "They can't rely on a future where everyone is well intended."
Even those nervous about Google's power use it. Many need it. It's the indispensable frenemy. Wilson says, "It's a very interesting relationship. People might hate Google but we need them because they're making such big strides in areas we need to go."
Source: smh.com.au
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