Restricting the View and Connecting the Dots - Dangers of a Web Search Engine Monopoly

: Everyone realizes how powerful the few big Web search engine companies have become, both in terms of financial resources due to soaring stock quotes and in terms of the still hidden value of the wealth of information available to them. Following the common belief that "information is power" the implications of what the data collection of a de-facto monopolist in the field like Google could be used for should be obvious. However, user studies show that the real implications of what a company like Google can do, is already doing, and might do in a not too distant future, are not explicitly clear to most people. Based on billions of daily queries and an estimated share of about 49% of the total Web queries [Colburn, 2007], allows predicting with astonishing accuracy what is going to happen in a number of areas of economic importance. Hence, based on a broad information base and having the means to shift public awareness such a company could for instance predict and influence t...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2006
• Where: JUCS
• Authors: Narayanan Kulathuramaiyer, Wolf-Tilo Balke
• Keywords: Google, Information, JUCS 2006, Search Engine Companies