Time for a Search Engine Alternative to Google

Listening to Amy Goodman talk to UC Berkeley school of law professor Deirdre Mulligan about Google, Yahoo, and MSN on today's Democracy Now! (streamed from Link TV in San Francisco-- no "rush transcript" available at this time)--

I couldn't help but note how powerful companies like Google have become.

It amazed me to hear that it can influence web hits by changing search string codes so that Chinese will not be able to get results for words like "democracy" or "Tian An men".

Dr. Mulligan suggested that the Chinese people are actually savvy about how its government clamps down on information.  Was she suggesting that Americans should not fear Google's compromise beacause (wink, wink)-- the Chinese still have all the tools they need to be informed citizens in their country?

I hope not.  

Such an assumption could have catastrophic consequences in easily imagined scenarios:  what if "tsunami", "disease outbreak", "nuclear accident" etc. are words that could never be googled?

"To not be evil" is not a particularly reassuring motto from Google.  

Listening to Dr. Mulligan, one can easily imagine that Google's (and its commercial competitors) not only have records of all its customer's searches-- but possesses the same ability to influence search strings at home in America and in other national democracies.

Are we to assume that someone in Japan is capable of searching for information that has not been screened to limit information about opposition political parties?  How about in America?  What did a search for "Ralph Nader" turn up for you in 2004?  Have you felt confident that the commercial search engines are helping you find all the articles that you posted right here on Indybay?

Google's admission that it compromises its neutrality for "worthwhile objectives" severely discredits its reputation to be trusted.  Perhaps it may never be wholly trusted again.

In the meantime-- we can only hope that Americans are savvy to the influence of government and powerful corporations on the information that is available to them-- and thus can boast that they still have all the tools to be responsible participants in a democracy.

In the meantime-- we must work toward creating free and open search engines that bypass government and corporate control monopolies on the flow of information.  We must be skeptical about the power of Google to influence the mainstream media-- and even the alternative media.  We must create an alternative to MSN, AOL, Yahoo, and yes, even Google.