Google Power

At the teenagehood of the internet age, a giant superpower is emerging, called Google. It has coined the expression "google it". It is able to deliver comprehensive and accurate search results in less than seconds which rivals all other search engines. But is Google, for all of its benefits, becoming too big and powerful?

The majority of internet searches are conducted through Google, which has made it Australia's most popular website. But behind this populism lies a hidden danger. That being as more people become reliant on Google for their information and interactions with websites, Google becomes the 'Key to the Web'. This firstly causes the extinction of smaller search engines, which could deliver 'niche' results, such as blogs, news, images, articles, books - all of which google has incorporated into its 'sub' search engines.This has already caused the merger of Yahoo and Live (Google's main rivals) into a new search engine, Bing. But secondly, it means that Google has has the power to turn our eyes in any direction on the web. If a website doesn't appear on Google, will people still visit that site, or be able to find it? This power that Google has gives it a massive advantage over the market that attempts to regulate it (free market theory). Google has the power to destroy a business if their website doesn't appear within the first page of a Google result.

But moreover from this, Google has become more than a search engine. It is a highly profitable business, as their small ads which are placed beside search results rake in millions of dollars. Their adsense program, which places ads in private sites (such as Blogger blogs), to which both parties split the profits, is also a good cash cow for Google. These large profit margins have helped Google launch into other technological pursuits.

Google is becoming less of an internet based search engine (or advertising company, depending on how you view their business model). It hosts a range of other services, from Google Earth to real estate, and now cloud computing. But Google is stretching (and has stretched) even further, and has developed and continuing to develop software, such as its internet browser Chrome. Google now aims to create a open source computer platform to challenge Linux, Microsoft and Apple. But they don't stop here, as Google has already launched a rival mobile (and mobile platform) in the US to steal sales away from the dominating iPhone. These software pursuits are going to radically change the computing and internet landscape.

So while Google has its many benefits, it has also become its own driving force for web domination. Whether Google becomes too big and starts to causes the demise of the internet age (some would point to Microsoft and software domination as an example), I'm not sure, maybe you should just "Google it".

 Links

Google Monster - The Age

Bingoo - The Economist

Terrorism laws, are they safe?

The Federal Government has just issued a discussion paper, proposing a change to the current terrorism laws. Though this new proposal is a bit of a mixed bag. 


The outline of the proposal is

• to allow police to conduct a raid on the grounds of suspicion without a warrant being granted by a judge
• make it more difficult for suspects to get out of jail on bail
• have a cap of 8 days for suspected terrorists to be held without charge
• make it a crime to urge attacks on someone based on their nationality or religion.
• make terrorism hoaxes punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

The last three points appear to have tangible benefits of clamping down on crime and making the law more clear. However the first point can be highly questioned. 


The current process of entering a property to search or raid on suspicion of terrorism (as well as other types of searches), is to go to a court and apply to get a warrant, which is issued by a judge. A warrant allows the police then to search, raid etc the area. This warrant is a level of security and scrutiny, which makes sure that the raid or search is conducted under enough evidence of suspicion and that there is reasonable cause. With terrorism laws, there needs to be less evidence or suspicion to conduct such a raid. But is these new measures going to be of any benefit in increasing our safety, or is it going to impinge on our rights, and open another avenue for corruption and abuse?


Without having to go to a judge and have a warrant issued, it enables a police squad to conduct a raid at their own discretion. This gives them a greater ability to act quickly, but is there such a need. All terrorism raids in Australia so far have been conducted through the process of getting a warrant, and there appears to be no "close call" situations that have arisen that would require such a drastic changing of the law. 


Though without this safeguard in place (of getting a warrant), this proposed new law in the name of safety could just cause more harm and danger. It allows for more opportunities where our freedom and security can be taken away, as their are less checks and balances in place, which means there is more of an opportunity for wrong raids and searches to be conducted. It enables the police to make impulse raids, which are dangerous because it is typically not the terrorists who are caught, but innocent ethnics who are stereotyped as terrorist (Dr Hanneff). Any backlash can cause more trouble, as these communities attempt to defend themselves from persecution while the police (presumably) defend their actions. And furthermore it sets a precedence which allows the government or police to intervene more into our lives, in the name of terrorism and at the spur of the moment, without safeguards and proper checks being in place.


So it appears that while some of these proposed changes may bring many benefits to clarifying the law, taking away the requirement for police to get a warrant in order to conduct a raid (in the name of terrorism), is an impingement upon our civil rights and freedoms, as it only opens up another avenue for corruption, abuse and harm. 


The discussion paper, outlining the proposed legal changes, is open for public discussion and comments until the 25th September. 

Links

ABC - No warrant terrorism raids proposed