Twenty years ago, any conversation about “Google” was likely a reference to the number 1 followed by 100 zeros properly known as “googol.” By 2002, the American Dialect Society voted “google” to be the 2nd most useful word of the year. Today, saying “google” is typically thought of as the equivalent to saying “search.” Twenty years from now, who knows what other connotations google will amount. Before any speculation, let’s take a look at the boom of this miraculous company.
In 1996, Stanford computer science grad students Larry Page and Sergey Brin started a search engine for their university called BackRub. But, by 1997, BackRub occupied too much bandwidth for Stanford to continue to support it, forcing Page and Brin to take their search engine elsewhere. Then, as early as 1998, PC Magazine recognized Google to be the top search engine website. But it was not for long until Google expanded its capabilities past being a search engine. Google now operates as an email provider, a mapping service, a web-based word processing cite (GoogleDocs), a calendar, a news aggregate, a web browser (Chrome), a translating program for 41 languages, and more.
Google’s importance within (American) society only continues to expand. In October of last year, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously decided to make Google their official email provider. Then, on February 10, 2010, Google announced plans for an experimental fiber network. Google will “build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks” in select trial locations including Los Angeles, Seattle, Austin, and Pittsburg. This service claims to work at speeds 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to currently. Google dreams big for what this ultra-high speed internet access can provide:
Imagine sitting in a rural health clinic, streaming three-dimensional medical imaging over the web and discussing a unique condition with a specialist in New York. Or downloading a high-definition, full-length feature film in less than five minutes. Or collaborating with classmates around the world while watching live 3-D video of a university lecture.
Amidst this expansion, however, Google struggles with its operations in China. As soon as Google launched in China, the government imposed censoring restrictions on what the search engine could provide for results. The government maintains the power to remove websites that it considers “subversive or offensive.” An example of such topics include any postings about the Tiananmen Square protests. Tension between the company and the country spiked January 12, 2010 once Google discovered “a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google.” Google has evidence which indicates “the primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.”
In their response, Google made the following announcement:
We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”
These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.
Google is still in talks with the Chinese government trying to resolve this issue, but, so far, no agreement has been reached. I respect Google for expanding the issue of hacking onto human right activists’ accounts to the need for better human rights within China as a whole. Far from imposing what should be said on the Internet, Google is working to provide free speech and access to free speech for its users. It’s going as far as to provide a better fiber network. Sadly, I do not foresee China lifting any censorship barriers. However ambitious, establishing freedom of speech on the internet may be one thing Google cannot do.
Projections 