Over the weekend one of Google’s founders, Sergey Brin, gave an interview to The Guardian newspaper in which he expressed his concern that freedom on the internet was facing its biggest threat. As a blog writer for an agency, I often try to avoid commenting on broad political or social issues that fall outside my realm. However, certain things in this interview really struck a chord with me personally, and some of Brin’s suggestions could have repercussions for companies who rely on search engine optimisation to drive revenue for the online part of their business.
His argument can be split into two distinct categories, one cultural/political and one technological. In this blog I’d like to focus more on his technological argument, but first let me provide a brief overview of his cultural/political argument in order to provide some context.
Repressive regimes such as China, Saudi Arabia and Iran censor and restrict use of the internet, and this is in direct opposition to the founding principles of Google and arguably the internet itself. They were both founded on the idea of openness and freedom, and naturally, censorship in any form defies that concept. This is driven home by the fact that despite China having the greatest number of internet users in the world, Google partially pulled out of that market in2010 because of censorship imposed by the Chinese government and the threat of cyber-attacks. Recently, as an example of this, China imposed a ‘real name’ policy in an attempt to distil the fervent micro-blogging scene in which tight nit groups of bloggers had developed secret codes used to undermine the government.
Unfortunately, we don’t have to look too far afield anymore for examples of this digital bowdlerisation. The SOPA and PIPA bills that were championed by the paragons of virtue at the head of the film and music industries proposed that the US government impose the very same measures that they had criticised China for, censoring the internet. No matter what side of the fence you sit on, anti-piracy or pro-freedom, it is undeniable that had the SOPA and PIPA bills been passed, a dangerous president would have been set for the traditionally more open Western governments to censor parts of the web.
Another example is that the British government actively monitor personal social media and email accounts. The US government have taken this a step further with the billion-dollar Utah Data Center, which will store information on ALL forms of communication, phone calls, social media profiles, emails, Google searches, all will be monitored alongside other forms of “digital pocket litter” including store purchases, parking tickets and library withdrawals. Under the guise of ‘national security’, these censorship issues seem to float quietly under the radar of the collective public, but to me it seems that true ‘internet freedom’ is an ideal that can’t possibly exist in the current global climate. Now, just to make it clear, I’m not the kind of reclusive conspiracy theorist that starts yelping about how George Orwell’s “1984” has become a guide, not a work of fiction, but to me at least, it seems that the boundaries be web freedom and personal freedom are becoming increasingly thin.
So, with my take on the cultural repression of web freedom covered, let’s take a closer look at the technological concerns that he revealed. The main culprits, according to Brin, are Facebook and Apple, both of which he accuses of building a walled garden where they retain tight control over the software that is released on their platforms. It’s no coincidence that he has pointed the finger at two huge technology companies, particularly Facebook who are becoming their closest rivals in the online advertising sector. However, while I do agree with Brin that web freedom is under threat from cultural/political influences, I don’t agree that the same can be said of technological influences, and even if it can, Google are just as responsible as Facebook and Apple.
One quote that he gave really summed this up for me. Brin said that Google could never have existed in an internet that was dominated by Google. He said, “You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive. […]The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web is so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.”
To put it bluntly, this quote is rife with contradictions. Along with Facebook, Google dominate the internet. They are the gatekeepers to the majority of the world’s information – maybe not social (that belongs to FB), but certainly navigational, factual and transactional information. In order for businesses to utilise Google as a marketing tool, they have ‘play by their rules, which are really restrictive’, as Brin puts it. The Webmaster Guidelines that modern websites MUST follow in order to rank well on Google are becoming increasingly restrictive, and this is emphasised by the 700,000 warnings sent to Webmasters in January and February of this year. It seems that many of these were given without much justification, as you’ll realise if you spend any time browsing the Google Webmaster forums.
He does have a point that this domination by one or two corporations can be repressive. I think Facebook’s billion-dollar acquisition of Instagram sums this up perfectly; they didn’t buy Instagram to improve or promote an innovative photo filtering application, they bought it to get rid of a competitor, or at least to stop Google acquiring something that could drive users to Google Plus. However, Google have purchased tech start-ups for this reason in the past, and they will do so again in the future. All in all, I think it’s fair to say that Google’s domination of the search engine market place has hampered arguably more innovative and user-friendly search engines, such as DuckDuckGo and Wolfram Alpha, from achieving the global recognition they deserve.
The second part of the Brin quote above is also particularly interesting, mainly about how Google relied on an open web to succeed, and how rules will stifle innovation. Because this quote was given in relation to Facebook, we can safely apply it within a social media context, and this means looking at Google Plus. Remember how I gave the example about the Chinese government enforcing a ‘real name’ policy on bloggers? Well, for those of you that aren’t aware, when Google Plus began, pseudonyms were not allowed, and users were forced to use their real name or they faced a suspension from the network. Those two policies are awfully familiar, albeit employed for different reasons. The government wanted to repress dissention and Google wanted to know more about users to increase their stranglehold on online advertising, different reasons, but both had the same goal of benefiting the people enforcing the measures. Google have tried to amend this rule slightly, as they now support nicknames, but they have to be entered alongside the ‘real name’ that the user has to register for a G+ account. Again, Brin has a point, but he seems oblivious to the fact that Google are equally responsible for the enforcement of rules and the stifling of innovation that he blames on other companies.
I write this article as someone who loves the internet, the opportunities it provides to businesses and individuals to further themselves is incredible. The access we have to information is something that would have seemed unfathomable 10 or 20 years ago, and an unfortunate, and potentially unavoidable, by-product of this informational freedom is that people will attempt to control and manipulate it. As an agency, we have to help businesses comply with the guidelines that Google sets and there is no doubt that you have to play by their rules to succeed on the online marketplace. The same applies to Facebook and Apple; they all enforce a set of rules that have to be met in order to succeed on their various platforms.
The question I wanted to ask you is whether you have a problem with this, and do you agree with Brin’s assessment on the decline of web freedom, if such a thing even exists? Is web freedom facing greater threats from cultural/political forces or a technological influence? I’d really love to hear your thoughts on this subject, so please feel free to comment.
This blog was written over 6 months ago and Internet Marketing and is an always changing industry which means the information within this blog may be out of date. Use caution when using any methods or suggestions within it.
