Imagine
if we all lived in the Kingdom of Google. The emperor has immense
amounts of information, is a brilliant strategist and continues to grow
in power. Now imagine for a minute that the emperor is not only
brilliant, but also
devious
. What type of patterns of
behavior might we expect in this hypothetical land of Google? What kind
of threats would loom for the citizenry? This article takes a
hypothetical look at just this issue. It's intended to be an opinion
piece and spark some intelligent discussion. Though I've tried to keep
the tone light and avoid any "tin-foil hat conspiracy theory" style
thinking, only you can be the judge as to whether I've succeeded.
Important
disclaimer: I'm not accusing Google of anything here. I'm just pointing
out the degree to which certain products are successful and how, if
Google
were
evil, what it could do to exploit its power.
5 Most Devious Things Google Could Do, If It Were Evil
1. Favor the emperor's chosen few:
Google
could provide some search ranking preference to sites that are running
on Blogger (its blogging platform) vs. those on other platforms (such
as WordPress or TypePad). This one is easy to do, and would be
extremely hard to detect as so many factors play a role in the
determination of the Google Search Rankings. The impact is that more
and more citizens try to become some of those "privileged few".
2. Punish Citizens Without Due Process:
This is a hot button of mine. If you are a Google AdSense customer or for that matter operate
any
website, Google could (in theory) ban your website from the Google
search engine for alleged infractions. In this regard, Google is both
judge and jury and you are guilty until proven innocent. There are
literally hundreds of articles on the web where dismayed website
operators discuss how they got banned from the Google search rankings,
banned from using AdSense, etc. In many of these cases, Google may have
been right and may have had a legitimate case. That's not my point. The
point is that this entire process is not transparent and Google has
full, unfettered discretion. Nothing helps keep the citizens in line
with the emperor's wishes more than some random punishments (or
punishments that seem random).
3. Know Who Is Related To Who:
This
is an interesting (and subtle) one. Now that more and more Google
products are using a central Google account for authentication (Gmail,
AdWords, AdSense, Webmaster Tools, Blogger, etc.) it is actually quite
possible for Google to know exactly which sites you are affiliated
with. Normally, this is not a bad thing (one could argue that this
helps Google deliver better search results). The danger here is that
not only could Google exact punishment on a given website, it could do
so on other
related
websites. This is like a citizen being
fearful of antagonizing the emperor for fear that not only would she be
penalized, but that such penalties could impact her friends and family
as well.
4. Force Businesses To Advertise:
Since
Google "knows" which websites are advertising (and which are not), it
could lower the organic search rankings for sites that it knows have
purchased Google AdWords in the past. Though this seems
counter-intuitive (Google would be penalizing its customers), in the
short-run, there is economic incentive to do so. The fact that the
search rankings themselves are a closely guarded secret means that no
individual business would ever be able to
prove
that Google
is intentionally giving it a lower organic ranking to extract more ad
dollars. This is a bit like the emperor controlling the local
newspaper. The emperor gets to decide who gets free mention in the
editorial parts of the paper and who is forced to buy advertising.
5. Change The Laws And Keep Them Obfuscated:
There
is an entire industry build around search engine optimization (which
for most means Google Optimization). Hundreds of people spend their
lives trying to understand the Google algorithm and determine how best
to earn the privilege of ranking their clients high for particular
searches. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, but it ties into
all of the points above. The search rankings have become so important
for so many customers, and the underlying algorithm is so
ill-understood that there is major potential for abuse. Should it ever
come to be that Google needs to exert even more influence amongst the
citizenry, all it has to do is change the laws of the land and send the
masses scurrying to try and figure out what the new rules are.
There
are many more possible problems with Google's growing power. The ones
that bother me the most are at the heart of many monopolies: product
bundling. As Google amasses a larger and larger pool of products that
touch millions of people, the potential to start tying these products
together in ways that do not benefit everyone is increasing.
What are your thoughts? Am I totally off-base with any or all of these particular concerns? Is Google a benevolent dictator, a not-so-benevolent dictator – or not a dictator at all?