Google minus 3

Google without any doubt is the global leader in search engine services that include many Internet products and services. It is the global leader in Internet advertisement and most of its income is based on it.

Google was founded in 1998 and in 2010 its worth around US$40.5 billion and has a revenue of US$23.6 billion. AdWords and AdSense are Google’s most important advertising applications spread among the entire web. Its rapid growth has positioned Google as a reference in the Internet industry for its innovations in its products and services. Google uses advanced algorithms to rank and prioritize the relevance of the information searched through its engines and have proved to be the most used alternative by Internet users.

Among its services we can find Google Search, Google Earth, Google Voice, Google Desktop, Google Chrome, Google Analytics, Google Video, Google Maps, Google News, Google Books, Google Calendars, Google Translate, You Tube and recently they have launched HTC phones like Nexus One and Droid Eris.

Nevertheless, the following paragraphs will present three issues that are interesting to think about and reflect on their impact on Google.

Issue #1 Privacy

Privacy is one of the main concerns of many regulatory players such as the Public Information Research’s Google Watch , the United States Department of Justice, Consumer Watchdog, European Union (EU) data protection officials, The Data Inspectorate of Norway, the Italian Personal Data Protection Code keepers and Privacy International. Google has been questioned many times time why it keeps the private information of its users for a longer period of time than the market in general. Google has detailed and somehow intimate information of its users profile and behavior and it is concentrated in one source. Many concerns in the potential improper use of this information have created reactions and users are complaining about their right to keep their privacy to themselves. Google has reached a point where control over the stream of information flowing through its engines may face some limitations to guaranty the privacy of its users. If this issue continues escalading and regulations become stricter in this matter, Google will face a complicated situation.

Issue #2 Sales Risks

According to Wikipedia almost 99% of the revenue of Google revenue comes from advertising in 2006. Google uses AdWords and AdSense for advertising distribution in the web. Income is generated depending on CPM, CPC or CPA/CPL modes agreed with the interested companies. Google have specialized controls to prevent the illegal clicking, which is basically click on advertisement to generate money for the website without being interested on it or to use programs to do this task automatically. Unfortunately, it seems that there are still relevant complaints about this matter out there. In 2006, some customers that paid for advertisement in Google complaint on its inability to prevent click fraud, representing considerable losses due unfairly earned advertisement. This issue seriously affects the reputation and the reliability of Google. For sure, Google makes the necessary adjustments to prevent this kind of illegal activities. Nevertheless, as the web becomes more complex and bigger, also the controls leave room for error. The effectiveness of Google to handle this threat will play in its favor or against depending on their performance in the future.

Issue #3 Real Relevance of the Information

Lastly, the relevance of the information delivered after a searching through its engine may have some degree of manipulation in the long run due to commercial purposes. There are ways to “optimize” a webpage to increase its chances to appear in the first pages after a search. Therefore the relevance of the information can be adjusted to the needs of a company or a supplier to promote their product or service in the first place. This means that “sometimes” when looking for non-commercial information and using Google’s search engine, the links and information displayed can be manipulated or biased so that the results may still display relevant information with commercial weight, lowering the effectiveness and real/actual relevance of the information from the point of view of the person that performs the search.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google
http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=GOOG