I Still Don’t Get It

On the Official Google Blog, Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President of Technology at Google announced that the 800 pound gorilla was entering into the world of politics and throwing it’s support behind the gay rights movement and urging Californians to vote no on proposition 8.

Proposition 8 would amend the California constitution so that “that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”

I’m not in California, but the specter of Google starting to get involved in the world of politics makes me nervous.  Google has enough money and technology that should they decide to oppose someone, or something, they could play an enormous part in defeating it.

Here’s just one example.  Let’s say that six months ago, Google decided it wanted Obama to be the next president.  What could they do?  How about setting their algorithm to remove any website supporting an opponent from their search results.  Do a search for Hilary Clinton?  Nothing found in support of her.  Just sites that oppose her.  Want information on McCain campaign?  Too bad.  JohnMcCain2008, or whatever his website is, doesn’t show in the search results.

With a little tweaking of the Google algorithm, they can make your search results come up any way they want.  For all we know, they are doing it right now.

While the opponents of Proposition 8 may be jumping for joy that Google has joined their campaign, in the long run, it’s bad for everyone.  Not just in California but world wide.  Google’s motto used to be “Do no evil”.  Now there motto might just be, “Do whatever you want, no one can prevent it.”