Google Co-founder Blasts Competitors, Governments for Today's Restrictive Web World

By

One of the pioneers of the Web revolution is none-too-pleased with the current state of the Internet. Google co-founder Sergey Brin told The Guardian on Monday that “very powerful” and “restrictive” forces are threatening the open nature of the Internet, creating an environment that inherently stifles innovation.

Brin said that the lack of Web openness can be blamed on a mix of government censorship, intellectual property enforcement (particularly by the entertainment industry) and Google's Internet brethren – Apple and Facebook – two companies that control the data and software that run across their proprietary platforms.

“You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive,” he said. “The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the Web was so open.”

Brin believes that companies like Google would have little chance of coming into form in an environment dominated by the likes of Facebook, a company that goes out of its way to discourage and disable users from moving their data to other services.

While Brin's portrayal of the current state of the Web is rather accurate, his direct criticism of Facebook's data policies can easily be classified as hypocritical. Just a month ago, Google “tidied up” its own collection of separate privacy policies by combining them into a singular document. While doing so, the company also took steps to share information across all Google products, essentially tracking users as they move across the Internet.

The highly controversial move led to outcries of criticism from consumer interest groups and federal regulators, who encouraged Google to suspend the move and rework the policy. Google chose not to.

In addition, Brin failed to mention that Google's own burgeoning social network, Google+, follows a similar script as that of Facebook. Just try sharing all your Google+ contacts and data with a competing service. Google was also heavily criticized for including Google+ info in its search results, a move Business Insider called the “worst mistake in its history.”






Edited by Jennifer Russell
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]

TechZone360 Contributor

SHARE THIS ARTICLE
Related Articles

Can Science Outsmart Deepfake Deceivers? Klick Labs Proposes an Emerging Solution

By: Alex Passett    3/25/2024

Researchers at Klick Labs were able to identify audio deepfakes from authentic audio recordings via new vocal biomarker technology (alongside AI model…

Read More

Top 5 Best Ways to Integrate Technology for Successful Project-Based Learning

By: Contributing Writer    3/19/2024

Project-based learning, also popularly known as the PBL curriculum, emphasizes using and integrating technology with classroom teaching. This approach…

Read More

How to Protect Your Website From LDAP Injection Attacks

By: Contributing Writer    3/12/2024

Prevent LDAP injection attacks with regular testing, limiting access privileges, sanitizing user input, and applying the proper encoding functions.

Read More

Azure Cost Optimization: 5 Things You Can Do to Save on Azure

By: Contributing Writer    3/7/2024

Azure cost optimization is the process of managing and reducing the overall cost of using Azure. It involves understanding the resources you're using,…

Read More

Massive Meta Apps and Services Outage Impacts Users Worldwide

By: Alex Passett    3/5/2024

Meta's suite of apps and services are experiencing major global outages on Super Tuesday 2024.

Read More