Internet Weekly Report - Commentary

Is It Time To Regulate Google?

I must admit, I'm a still bit cheesed after having my Google rank drop two points from a 6 to 4 in the last year.  It seems to me to be a little to self-serving of on exercise.  Google lowers your rank and a week later your Google traffic goes south, but I think the question or regulating Google is a lot bigger than my site's page rank fluctuations.

First, I've never really understood how Google determines it's page rankings.  Of course, nobody really does because its a proprietary process that is controlled by Google.  We're supposed to believe Google is benevolent and that it's search rankings are "democratic".  If that's true, why not open up the page ranking algorithm to the public so we can see how fair your system really is?

As this CIO article, Google's Phone Plan Raises Concerns for Customers, points out, Google has become a sort of weird deity in our culture that now knows more about our personal habits that the even the Bush administration!

The two questions I have are:

(1) Are Google's page ranking and Google Ads that I still display on pages anti-competitive or not? Is there a conflict of interest going on or do we continue to trust this silicon god?

(2) What information is kept on people who use Google, how is it used for marketing purposes and who is that information shared with?

Either Google should publish it's page ranking methodologies, disclose what it is storing on people who use Google or the government should step in and regulate Google before this modern day deity starts throwing it's thunderbolts on all of us.

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