Google is many things. To some its a symbol of the success of the dotcom ideal. To others it has become an activity online (to google), and to others it is almost synonmous with our experience of the Web and maybe the Internet since most people no longer differentiate these two things.
The position of Google has taken such proportions that we no longer remember the time before Google. Not many years ago the main search engine was Altavista – its still there, but it no longer commands the position it once did. Google has been moving in all manner of interesting directions. Just to menation a few: Google desktop, Gmail, Google Scholar, Google Maps and Google Earth.
Google’s position has spawned some interesting spoofs: for example Googlism – which shows what google “thinks of you, your friends or anything”. Another example is the mirror version world of elgooG. A final example is Woogle which uses the picture search to tell stories in pictures.
Even prior to this diversification there were voices being raised about the position which Google was creating for itself in the everyday online lives of users. The question, stated basically, is what happens if we become dependant upon a private company for our information? Google is not a public office but is a private company whose primary goal is not truth but profit. In this vein we have seen that Google stores vast amounts of information about its users and has acquiesced to Chinese demands to censor information to users in China.
The role of search engines is becoming an important area of research, recently Matthew Rimmer at the Law Department of the ANU has organised a public forum on Google entitled “GOOGLE – Infinite Library, Copyright Pirate, or Monopolist?” (9 December).
The audio files from the Public Forum are online so for those of us who could not make it to Australia in time we can now listen to the presentations.
