Google's Modest Goals a Threat to Privacy?

Google apparently wants to know and control everything on the internet. Some Austrian researchers are concerned about this.

An Austrian university study argues that Google is creating unacceptable monopolies that will allow it to control information flows and invade privacy.

A research team led by Professor Hermann Maurer, chairman of Graz University's Institute for Information Systems and Computer Media, argues that Google is creating unacceptable monopolies in many areas of the worldwide web.

According to his research, around 61 billion internet searches are conducted each month. In the United States, on average 57 per cent of searches are conducted with Google, and up to 95 per cent of internet users use Google sometimes.

"Google's open aim is to know everything there is to know on Earth," the researchers concluded. "It cannot be tolerated that a private company has that much power: it can extort, control, and dominate the world at will."

Stopping the insidious aspects of Google was however not possible by a head-on strategy, as the company was too powerful, the Austrian researchers warn. Rather, they say, the "Google effect" can be minimised by the introduction of special-purpose search engines that are better in their areas of application that the larger company is.

Only about ten years until we can switch our brains off and just rely on the Google microchip plug in that will be permanently plugged into our frontal lobes at birth. To trust Google is to believe that their business goals are benign.