Google's Gatekeepers

theodp writes "With control of 63% of the world's Internet searches, as well as ownership of YouTube, the NY Times reports that Google is the most powerful and protean of the Internet gatekeepers, exerting enormous influence over who can find an audience on the Web around the world. Deciding what controversial material does and doesn't appear on the local search engines Google maintains in many countries — as well as on Google.com, YouTube, Blogger, Picasa, and Orkut — falls on the shoulders of Nicole Wong and her colleagues, who have arguably been given more influence over online expression than anyone else on the planet. Some find Google's gatekeeper role worrisome: 'If your whole game is to increase market share,' says Lawrence Lessig, 'it's hard to do good, and to gather data in ways that don't raise privacy concerns or that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.'"

Comments

don't complain about Microsoft then

[jmcbain]

I use Microsoft Windows for searches, but I could easily switch to MacOS, Linux or even Solaris.

Until Microsoft starts doing things to stop people using other operating systems, there's no problem. If people object to the dominance of Microsoft Windows, they must either campaign for users to move to other operating systems, or create a better operating system and gain marketshare.