Google Case Study

By: Stacia Nambiar

 Google
Google is a web based search engine which is used worldwide providing
users the ability to search and obtain information by simply typing
keywords into the search engine.
The search engine not only provides its service to search but it has an
index of around 60 million pages. Some of its features include: G-mail,
Google Maps, Google Print and many more including social networking
tools. Furthermore, the company not only offers these features but
they are also responsible for partnerships and products.
The company was officially incorporated in 1998 and so it has been
around for a good 12 years and it seems to be heading up for a big
future with many more years to come. However it has not been around
for that long and therefore was not ths 1 st search engine to exist.
Google’s ethos are based on the saying ‘Don’t be evil’ as the founders
stated ‘We believe that we will be better served as shareholders and
in all other ways by company that does good things for the world.’
 Free Speech
“We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech
viewpoints in Google News, although referencing hate speech for
commentary and analysis is acceptable".

Although Google itself isn't a social networking site where people

contribute via users adding to the website or making changes they
do own blogger which allows people free speech. They are able to
create their own individual blogs which permits them to write what
they like without it being restricted. To this extent it can be
argued that Google is egalitarian. It enables free speech worldwide.
However, recently there has been issues which China which has forced
it to limit free speech on the web, as Google's websites of human
rights activists have come under cyber threat.
 Institutions

Google extends its huge presence on the Web to the desktop like
Google Chrome and mobile phones such as Google Android which
allows it to dominate almost every application category on not only
the Web, but also the desktop aswell as mobile phones.Therefore,
Google’s domination of such applications and search markets, makes
it difficult for smaller companies to compete against Google
 Power Elites

Google is part of an oligarchy even though it does share much of the

market. Also the fact that it is a prominent site it very easily takes
up a huge part of the internet and peoples use of the net by being a
search as well as having its existing services. Some may argue that
because it is so huge and it dominates much of the internet being
the most used search engine site to exist that it has its own
monopoly.

Rather than it having many power elites controlling them it can be

argued that Google acts very much as a power elite itself owning
some of the widely used social networking sites such as facebook
and twitter.
 We Think & We think Pro Ams

As Google is worldwide and there is limited restriction as to

what is on the site peoples views updates news simple
everything that can possibly be found on the net is on
Google.
The site is therefore appealing to people worldwide. Simply
those who are interested not only in the 21 st century as it is
easily accessible it allows everyone to use it easily and
quickly.
Furthermore, Google recently announced plans to develop
Google Wave, a product that helps users communicate and
collaborate on the web.This is where users can almost
instantly communicate and work together with richly
formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and much more.
Google allows users to share and collaborate by acting as a
search engine. It enables people to visit the site and search
for what they like whenever they like.
 Open Source

12% of Google news is original open source.

Google handles both internal open source compliance and
external outreach programs, including source release,
open source infrastructure.
Also Google has its open source programme allowing
people to use it as an open source this is through not
only the Google Web Toolkit which is an open source
toolkit allowing developers to create applications in
the Java programming language but there is also
Google shell which is an open source browser based.
This is simply used as a front end for Google search.
.
 Copyright
Copyright is the set of limited rights which are approved by the creator of an original
work, which take into account the right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.

One of the more controversial search services Google is Google Books. The company
began scanning books and uploading limited previews, and full books into their new
book search engine. However, a number of copyright disputes arose, and Google
reached a revised settlement in 2009 to limit its scans to books from the U.S.
"Google is pushing at the boundaries of what these laws mean". Stated from Susan
Freedman, a copyright expert.

Furthermore, visual artists have previously sued Google over copyright.

Read the article relating Google’s copyright issues.
Creative Commons
Google Advanced Search enables creative commons
customized Searching. Creative Commons provides copyright
licenses for authors and artists. Google now enables
filtering for Creative Commons-licensed content.

Creative Commons own the “Find” page which enables people

the option to use either Google for your searching.

Google Image Search now has the option to restrict the

results to images that are licensed using Creative Commons.
There is a list of flexible licenses that allow content
creators to share their works with the world.Google Guide is
licensed under a Creative Commons License to give you more
rights than copyright allows.

“People are free to copy, distribute, display, perform the

work and make derivative works.” Under the following
conditions:

• Attribution. People must give Nancy Blachman credit and

link to or reference the original version, or Google Guide's
home page: www.googleguide.com

• Non commercial- People cannot use this work for

commercial purposes.
 Digital Divide

Google's search is in more than 110 languages, offering people the ability
to restrict results to content written in their own language, “our mission
is to facilitate access to information for the entire world, and every
language.“

Through Google, people can discover content written on the other side of
the world, in languages they don't speak using translation tools. With
these tools and the help of volunteer translators Google offers “quality
around the world.” Therefore, they seek to provide their services to as
many users as possible.

Furthermore Google has always had a good user for visually impaired users.
"Blind and partially sighted people reported to RNIB from the start that
Google was their favourite search engine."
 Free Press

Recently it has been declared that unless Google was allowed to

offer an uncensored search engine in China, it would shut down its
existing censored search engine and would consider pulling out of
China entirely.
Consequently, Google also provides Google news allowing people who
visit the site to sign up and receive updates about current events and
news.
 Gate Keeping
Gate keeping is the process by which billions of messages that are
available in the world get cut down and transformed into the hundreds of
messages that reach a given person on a given day.

Speaking from Google: it’s hard to gather data in ways that don’t raise
privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to
block controversial content.’

The most powerful of these Internet gatekeepers is Google, with the

control of 63 percent of the world’s Internet searches, as well as owning
YouTube, Google has a majour influence over who can find an audience on
the Web around the world. Read the article regarding Gate Keeping
An example of gate keeping is the dictatorial policy of “site blocking” that
Google is forcing on site owners. However, Google is in the form of their
site blocking enforcing it without any legal authority.
Marxist Theory

Marxists emphasise the ideology regarding hegemony and

how the ruling class appear superior to others. Through
this theory they make sense of the big media and how its
used to maintain this system of meritocracy.

The users of Google represent an ideology that allows anyone

to freely say what they want and use the site freely to an
extent, as millions of posts are updated within seconds
onto Google.

As Google acts as a search engine it allows for a free flow

of ideas rather than it enforcing any sort of bias. The
Marxist theory would suggest that as Google is as huge
and dominating over the net as it is, that this could lead
to hegemony. So far, it appears to be rather neutral and
not in favour of just the big media. As it is worldwide and
does not restrict people from using it and stating their
opinions it is simply widely and freely used.
 Net Neutrality

Google remains strongly committed to the

principle of net neutrality, and will continue to
work with policymakers in the years ahead to
keep the Internet free and open”
Google is a leader of the net neutrality charge.

It is very unlikely that Google will ever be shut

down that fact that it is a leading company one
that many people use worldwide means that it
is too big and too powerful to be controlled by
any existing power elites.

Net neutrality supporters have to some extent been drawn into what is a fight
between two groups of major corporate interests content owners and
carriers.Therefore, Google does reply on net neutrality to be successful.
As Google is freely used and allows anyone to use it it doesn’t exactly control
the net in any way yet it does play a vital role in the way in which people
actually use the internet.