Devil’s Advocate: Google – an electronic freedom argument

COMMENT Martin Brampton considers free exchange of information and the role Google may or may not have to play…

Can the internet usher in a new era of freedom and equality? In the early days hopes were high, as it was believed that universal access to publishing at almost no cost would revolutionise communications. Current developments are ambiguous.

An illustration of the continuing wish for free communication is the move by scientists to break the stranglehold of specialist journals. Scientific papers are independently reviewed and then published in periodicals, of which the most famous is Nature. The authors and reviewers receive no fee but the journals are sold, often for substantial amounts.

Notwithstanding the march of commerce, many scientists still believe that everyone interested in the field should freely share their ideas. Renewed efforts are going into distribution of papers without charge, bypassing the commercial journals. That this trend is taken seriously is illustrated by a sharp fall in the share prices of major publishers, notably Reed Elsevier.

Of course the medium for free publication is the internet. In this instance, it seems as if the internet is delivering all of its early promise. After all, it was designed for the sharing of scientific papers. It was also expected to return power to the individual and remove it from established organisations.

Whether the publishing of scientific papers can ever be free of commercial considerations remains to be seen. Perhaps if free exchange of information is achieved, that should be enough. When an internet site is regularly visited by a defined group of people, it is inevitable that someone will think of its revenue potential. If, for example, all the scientists in a particular field regular visit a free online journal, it becomes an obvious place for recruitment advertising for those specialists.

Fears for the future of Google are driven by the fact that so many internet activities do involve money. I remember Google as the first time I decided to make a search engine my home page. The earlier contenders were very much aware of their potential as portals to the internet. Google cleverly kept that in the background, replacing complex and cluttered pages with a simple and direct search facility.

Introducing quite low key advertising has been sufficient for Google to become a highly valuable company with significant revenue. But that is not the reason for Microsoft’s rumoured interest. For many people, Google has become the starting point for internet access. From that starting point, many of the possible moves people make involve financial considerations.

Part of the reason for Google’s success is the widely held belief that it provides complete and unbiased results. Now that is only possible so long as its owners refrain from pushing a particular view of the world. Its value in a sale of shares is currently being assessed in terms of its advertising revenue. But valued in terms of its potential to influence opinion, it might be worth a great deal more. That is what makes Google vulnerable as it moves towards any sort of flotation.

So just as new opportunities are opening up for making knowledge more widely available without charge, so the means of finding it may be under threat. And this is a threat to any genuine conception of democracy. It is relatively harmless that money permits the acquisition of material objects. It is much more alarming when money can be used to change people’s view of the world.

We are left wondering what mechanisms can provide us with any protection. Public ownership is unfashionable. It is hard to make legislation effective, especially internationally. Consumer choice has some effect but is too easily moulded. Open publication is helpful but may be under threat. Is there a way out of these concerns?