“Eric looked at Larry and Sergey and said, ‘You idiots. You spelt Googol wrong’. And that was the last mistake Larry and Sergey ever made”. ( BBC doco reference). Ever? Forever ever? Ahh bless these entirely objective film-makers. For all the anti-Google sentiment to be found on the web, there would appear to be an enormous amount of supporters (both employed by Google and otherwise) proudly waving the Google flag. Or rather, proudly riding the Google Wave.
There are a number of issues to be unpacked in exploring the Googleocracy/ Googlearchy debate. Not least of which is the disdain I feel when noticing these terms don’t register as spelling mistakes in Microsoft Word; however folksonomy and mashup are apparently incorrect. The primary concern of individuals with an interest in the developing Google drama; centres on the notion of whether Google is in fact democratising access to information or creating a dictatorship/monarchy of information, guiding us towards its favoured choices of history. It is commonly understood that Google uses a page-rank system, by which the most popular pages are produced first in a Google search. On face value, it would appear that smaller, perhaps independent sites stand little chance of competing against corporate media giants; however, Hindman (et al, 2003, 10-12) finds that competitor sites to Google (aggregators of information) employ almost identical methods of page-rank, meaning this accusation of inequality should be applied to all sites that aggregate content. With 83% of searches conducted on the internet being performed by Google (Nielsen NetRatings, 2003) it becomes apparent that the largest company will receive the most criticisms. But is this justified?
While the companies’ “Don’t Be Evil” (Google, 2009) slogan indicates its intentions are largely altruistic, nagging little puzzle pieces found in the End User License Agreement and other legal documentation leaves the inquiring user with a very sour after-taste. Its altruism can only be considered minimal when considering the profit Google stands to make on its Google Books digital library collections (Naughton, 2008). Moore (2009) acknowledges that all content in Google’s Gmail application is owned by Google and can be used in any context or published by Google at any given time. This technically permissible access to private information raises a number of concerns, rigorously debated within the third year UOW class, History of Media and Communication301. One particular group worth mentioning created a Facebook group to discuss the topic area and gain feedback from students. ‘Our Google generation, are you using google or is google using you?’ (Verschuer, 2009), challenges students understanding of Google’s EULA and rights to their private information. Members of another group (Wright, 2009) developed an interesting short film and survey based on the topic “Is Google making us dumb?”. This is yet another area is which academic debate is divided, with some arguing that Google is nurturing an inquisitive pattern of behaviour, while others argue that it is making us lazy and inept at cross-referencing (with 83% of internet users using Google as their first site for research- Nielsen Net-ratings, 2003).
In an informal survey, our personal habits within the DIGC202 group have been unanimously to consult Google as the first option. If Google doesn’t have the answer, then you’re not typing the question correctly. Although tertiary educated and always willing to cross-check our findings, the mere assumption that Google provides answers is frightening. As Batchelor (2009) points out, Google doesn’t actually provide answers. It’s not a content provider, just an aggregator. Our technological utopianism regarding Google would appear to be far more ingrained than initially perceived, and begs the question, Googleocracy or Googlearchy?
References
Batchelor, Bob 2009, 2009, ‘Google and the End of Wisdom’, PopMatters, http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/107954-google-and-the-end-of-wisdom, accessed 17/10/09
Google, 2009, ‘Corporate Information’, Google, http://www.google.com/corporate/tenthings.html, accessed 17/10/09
Hindman, Mattew, Tsioutsiouliklis, Kostas, Johnson, Judy, A. 2003, ’ “Googlearchy”: How a Few Heavily- Linked Sites Dominate Politics on the Web http://seneca.uab.es/antropologia/jlm/ars/googlearchy—hindman.pdf, accessed 17/10/09
Moore, C, 2009, Personal Communication
Naughton, J, 2008, “Google Pays Small Change to Open Every Book in the World”, The Guardian UK, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/nov/02/google-books-scanning-libraries, accessed 17/10/09
Nielsen-Netratings. 2003a. ‘Nielsen NetRatings Search Engine Rankings’. Technical Report.
Search Engine Watch, http://searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html, accessed 17/10/09
Vershuer, R, 2009, ‘Our Google generation, are you using google or is google using you?’, BCM301, http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=124981177308, accessed 17/10/09
