Google google google. I would estimate that someone somewhere points out that Google is now analagous to a natural resource about once a second. I suppose the ideas surrounding the search-engine debates aren’t new, in fact I bet if I could be bothered to read Marchall McLuhan, he was probably making some pertinent points was back there in the 60s or 70s or whatever. Probably he pointed out that with the emergence of more channels of information flow, the main problem of information access is no longer finding but filtering: how best to drink from the firehouse. There are too many answers out there for your question, so how do you find the ones that are most useful?

Of course, search engines have become our main firehose mouthpiece. And google has, through good hard work and smartness, become our main search engine. And so it has become one of our main filters on the world, arguably as important as the news media for those of us who use the internet a lot.

And of course, controversy has ensued.

I’ve just sort of woken up to this debate and I find it mucho interesting. I’d always seen google as a nuetral thing, doggedly returning what really was the best and most relevant answer to my question. I shouldn’t really be suprised that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

Back in March or April (when are we going to standardize numerical date formats?), The Register printed off a great story on the use of googlewashing to, in a sense, change the meaning of the term “the second superpower”. It hits on and illustrates many of the themes in the search engine controversy. If you are interested, here it is. Be breifly warned: the writing is about on level with my own. But the topic is sticky and the insight is deep, something you get from people writing about their own field (as opposed to news journalists, who do a great job of making their quickly researched shallow insight accessible). It’s sort of a like a conspiracy-theory story, but one you can verify yourself by playing around with Google. And they never point out that Google is like a natural resource, which is refreshing.