If you have not heard of a search engine called Google, then you have been living under a mighty big rock, that is quite possibly the size of a house. Google is pretty much the largest directory in the world. With its explosive growth right around the world, it is worth 490 billion dollars to date. The company started in California in 1998 and since then Google has launched many successful apps and products people use on a daily basis. I think we can all agree; the services Google have, has made every day people’s lives easier. But, have they gone too far with their next innovative product? I believe yes and so do many other digital marketers.
Google’s next product is going to be seen later in 2017 on mobile devices only. The new product is called AMP which stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Search Engine Land (searchengineland.com) describes AMP as “an accessible framework for creating fast-loading mobile web pages. The open-source initiative is designed to enable publishers to easily improve speed (and consequently, the user experience) for their mobile readership without sacrificing any ad revenue that they may rely upon”.
All the technical jargon aside, this product pretty much gives Google the ability to control what information comes up in your search without a third party source. More or less, Google can write whatever answer they want and it will come up first in the search. The problem with this is that information is delivered based on one companies ideas, beliefs and culture and with 3.5 billion searches made per day, this may cause a bit of a problem. Imagine if Google was in the hands of someone such as Adolf Hitler, for example? The propaganda risk is huge and makes freedom of speech redundant. Sure, there are answers underneath that may be useful and come from a credible source under your answer, although who is going to pay attention to these when your answer is in a nice looking box at the top of your query. But it seems like it could be just another one of those Secrets of Google Search, we are becoming so used to.
Part of Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. However, it does not say anywhere it will control, make and deliver information to users. This is a wee bit frightening and makes us all think in the technical industry about the possible outcomes this may cause.
But don’t get me wrong, I love Google. Their technology and innovative advancements are out of this world and has completely transformed how we live our lives. Although it is still important to keep up to date with these types of changes, because we as the users, need to be the watchdog of this industry.
For more articles about Google visit the DigiGround Blog.
