The world’s most dangerous company

News outlets and agencies have begun to talk about a small story that was lost amidst the crowd of other news, namely that security authorities in South Korea have stormed the offices of the giant technology company “Google”, in order to conduct a search.  This story may have been brief and concise, but it is important. This of course is not the first time that Google has been exposed to confrontations with governments and regulators; it has had well-known, standoffs and clashes with the governments of China, the United States and the European Union. Google considers this to be government interfering in people’s privacy, an attack on their rights, and a threat to national security. This has prompted some observers to classify the company as “the most dangerous in the world”.

Google today, for the majority of people around the world, is known as possessing the most important internet search engine. Therefore, most people looking for information on the internet turn to this company, with a recent study showing that more than 80 percent of internet searches are conducted via Google.  Of course, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the “impartiality” of Google’s search engine results, and particularly the order of results, especially as on average more than 20 percent of internet users only brose through the first 5 results.  There just imagine the amount of influence Google could have as an information provider, if it sought to influence public opinion in any way.

Google’s role is not limited to the domain of online search engines, but it has also expanded to provide maps as a means for users to check locations. Nowadays if a location does not “exist” on Google maps then it is as if this does not exist in reality and nobody will be able to find this location!  Today, Google is expanding strongly in the field of mobile phone communication, with its “Android” operating system. This is a replica, although in my opinion slightly more advanced, of the operating system established by Apple for its iPhone.  Of course, Google has produced the operating system without manufacturing a mobile phone device itself (it did for a period before discontinuing this).  Google has now ensured the spread of its Android system through “Samsung”, “Sony Eriksson” and “Motorola” mobile devices. The same thing applies to Tablet computers.

Google’s successes have enabled the Android operating system to gain the market share in communications devices, from mobile phones to tablet PCs, at a rate of ten to one. This is a large percentage, but Google has not achieved success in all its ventures. It still trails behind with its email service, “Gmail”, compared to “Yahoo Mail” and Microsoft’s “Hotmail”, although Gmail is growing rapidly. Likewise, Google has also failed in the development of two other significant products. Firstly, its effort to create a social network to rival “Facebook”, with the release of “Google Plus”, has failed to succeed. Likewise, it tried to compete with “Twitter” but also failed.

However, many observers believe that the real danger of Google lies in something more important that it has not exploited so far. It lies in the incredible amount of information available to the company and its highly developed research apparatus. Google also has information regarding the current interests and fads; or in other words, Google knows precisely what everybody is searching for.  What could this information be worth to consumer companies and security services? This is exactly what was predicted by the famous English writer George Orwell, in his well-known prophetic novel, “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, in which he describes the government of “Big Brother”, which knows everything. This is why states today fear Google; they fear its alarming size and control of information, statistics, and its methods and means of presenting this to the public. Google can present this information to the public in a specific manner; with the proliferation of such information making it into a de facto truth that cannot be called into question.

Google today is no longer only in traditional competition with companies, but it is also in competition with major governments who have realized its significance and the danger it represents, and they are at a loss as to how to restrict it without Google overpowering them.