In short, Google is changing expectations about what people can know — even in the US, where formal censorship is absent, but government obfuscation, opaque corporations and the like are not. Moreover, in countries where Google is criticized for blocking access to information, it points out the information’s absence when something is blocked — letting people know that it exists but that they can’t have access to it.
On the other hand, every time someone in China Googles something and gets an answer — a product’s good and bad points, the details about someone the government does not like —– he must wonder, “Why can’t I get this kind of information about everything?” With Google, people start to expect answers about everything. A little transparency inevitably leads to more. Rather than demand an end to censorship now — an impossible dream — Google is working to make that happen by eroding government control over information.
Moreover, from a purely practical point of view, Google makes the world more efficient. Buyers and sellers can find one another, schoolchildren can find information needed for their homework, and sick people can find health information.
The real threat of evil, I think, lies in the temptations of “international governance” — say, a sinister multilateral government body called the World Information Center. Nice as it sounds, the reality is likely to be ridden with bureaucracy, susceptible to control by the worst of the world’s governments rather than its best ones, and incapable of innovation. Take, for example, ICANN, the body that sets policy for the Domain Name System. I was its founding chairman, and I don’t think anyone considers it a success. Its saving grace is that it is widely considered illegitimate and therefore has little power.
By contrast, Google is effective at what it does, and therefore has the legitimacy of results. But it has little coercive power, because anyone is free to try an alternative. Its only option is to be better than the competition.
The fact that these issues are being debated is a good sign in itself — keeping Google and its watchers on guard. Fortunately, a wary press corps, powerful governments, and nervous competitors watch its every move, hoping the company to fight its many temptations. Abuse of power is evil, but power itself is not.
Esther Dyson, chairwoman of EDventure Holdings, is an investor in a variety of start-ups around the world. Her interests include information technology, health care and private aviation and space travel.
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