functions such as Web search, e-mail, personal “cloud computing,” and online advertising. Chapter 6 and the conclusion consider how Google is changing and challenging both the technologies and the companies that govern human communication. The book concludes with a call for more explicitly public governance of the Internet. Such governance might take the form of greater privacy guarantees for Web users or strong antitrust scrutiny of companies like Google. The particular forms and instruments of governance are not as important as the general idea that what Google does is too important to be left to one company. But any criticisms and calls for regulation should be tempered with an honest and full account of Google’s remarkable and largely beneficial contributions to our lives. Google figured out how to manage abundance while every other media company in the world was trying to manufacture scarcity, and for that we should be grateful.
As I finished this book, it seemed that the instruments that traditionally supply knowledge for public deliberation were collapsing all around us. Newspapers in the United States and Europe were closing at a startling rate. Many newspaper leaders blamed Google because it alone seemed to be making money. Book publishers were also panicking, as readers suffering from a recession steadily held back their disposable cash, and moves by Amazon, Apple, and Google to serve as cheap-book vendors generated as much anxiety as opportunity. After weighing the various claims and arguments about the fate of journalism and publishing during a crippling global recession, I conclude that we should invest heavily in a global library of digital knowledge, with universal access and maximum freedoms of use. This proposal does not entail a simple bailout or subsidy to any industry or institution. It means that we should embark on a global, long-term plan to enhance and extend the functions of libraries in our lives. So the concluding chapter of this book proposes what I call a Human Knowledge Project. It takes a broad, ecological approach to the idea that we need to infuse the public sphere with resources, energy, and incentives. It is based on the premise that we can do better than hand over so many essential aspects of human endeavor to one American company that has yet to reach even its adolescence.
The youth and inexperience of Google lie at the root of my concerns. Among our major institutions, global information-technology corporations change and adapt faster than any others. This is generally good for them and good for us. But when we grant one—or even two or three—firms inordinate influence over essential aspects of our lives, we risk being jolted by sudden changes of direction, burned by the heat, and blinded by the light. The one thing we can’t assume about such companies is that they will remain the same. The Google of 2021 will not resemble the Google of 2001—or even of 2011. Much of what we find comforting about Google may be gone very soon. The imperatives of a company that relies on fostering Web use and encouraging Web commerce for its revenue may understandably morph into a system that privileges consumption over exploration, shopping over learning, and distracting over disturbing. That, if nothing else, is a reason to worry.
| ONE | RENDER UNTO CAESAR |
| HOW GOOGLE CAME TO RULE THE WEB |
Google dominates the World Wide Web. There was never an election to determine the Web’s rulers. No state appointed Google its proxy, its proconsul, or its viceroy. Google just stepped into the void when no other authority was willing or able to make the Web stable, usable, and trustworthy. This was a quite necessary step at the time. The question is whether Google’s dominance is the best situation for the future of our information ecosystem.
In the early days it was easy to assume that the Web, and the Internet of which the Web is a part, was ungoverned and ungovernable. It was supposed to be a perfect libertarian space, free and open to all voices, unconstrained by the conventions and norms of the real world, and certainly beyond the scope of traditional powers of the state.1 But we now know that the Internet is not as wild and ungoverned as we might have naively assumed back at its conception. Not only does law matter online, but the specifics of the Internet’s design, or “architecture,” influence how the Web works and how people behave with it.2 Like Jessica Rabbit in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Internet is not bad—it’s just drawn that way. Still, architecture and state-generated law govern imperfectly. In the People’s Republic of China, the state clearly runs the Web. In Russia, no one does. States such as Germany, France, Italy, and Brazil have found some ways to govern over and above Google’s influence. But overall, no single state, firm, or institution in the world has as much power over Web-based activity as Google does.
So Google, which rules by the power of convenience, comfort, and trust, has assumed control, much as Julius Caesar did in Rome in 48 B.C. Before Caesar, there was a state of chaos and civil war. Rome was presided over by weak, ineffective leaders who failed to capture the support of the people or to make the city livable. Like Caesar, Google has found its mandate to rule through vast popular support, even in the absence of a referendum. And like Caesar’s, Google’s appeal is almost divine. Because we focus so much on the miracles of Google, we are too often blind to the ways in which Google exerts control over its domain.3
So how, exactly, does Google rule the Web? Through its power to determine which sites get noticed, and thus trafficked, Google has molded certain standards into the Web. Google has always tended to degrade the status of pornography sites in response to generic or confusing search terms, thus making it less likely that one will stumble on explicit images while rarely blocking access to such sites entirely.4 Google has ensured that the Web is a calmer, friendlier, less controversial and frightening medium—as long as one uses Google to navigate it.
Through its advertising auction program, Google favors and rewards firms that create sites that meet explicit quality standards set by Google, such as simple pages that load quickly, lack of flashy animation, and coherence in search terms that helps ensure users are not tricked into clicking on a pornography site when seeking travel advice.5 Google has limited access to sites that place malicious programs on users’ computers. This fight against “malware” is one of the keys to keeping the Web worthy of users’ trust and time. If too many sites infected users’ computers with harmful software, people would gravitate away from the relatively free and open Web into restricted and protected domains, known as “walled gardens” or “gated communities,” that seem less vulnerable to electronic pandemics.6 Google also, extremely rarely, directly censors search results when they are troublesome or politically controversial, or when the company determines that a firm or group is trying to rig the system to favor its site. When that happens, Google usually places some sort of explanation in the search results to explain and justify the policy.7
Overall, these policies have the effect of cleaning up the Web, ensuring that most users have a comfortable experience most of the time. Google can usually achieve this goal without stooping to raw censorship. The net effect is the same, however, because the protections that we rely on, including “safe search,” are turned on by default when we first access Google, and our habits (trust, inertia, impatience) keep us from clicking past the first page of search results. Google understands the fact that default settings can work just as well as coercive technologies.8 Overall, Google orders our behavior and orders the Web without raising concerns that it is overbearing. It’s a brilliant trick.
Nothing about this means that Google’s rule is as brutal and dictatorial as Caesar’s. Nor does it mean that we should plot an assassination, as killing off Google might have the same effect on the state of the Web as Julius Caesar’s death had on Rome: a return to unbearable chaos and fractured alliances. In fact, the institutions waiting in the wings to assume governance of the Web, such as commercial telecommunication companies and media conglomerates, are definitely less trustworthy than Google is today. In many ways, we should be grateful that Google governs so well. Google has made Web commerce and communication stable, dependable, and comfortable. By hiding how it does all this behind its simple and clear interface, Google convinces us that it just knows how to make our lives better.
