The big picture

I don’t know exactly how we would get around the web without search engines. The 16% of internet users that are outlined in the Pew Report must have used the internet one time in their lives. (And they had to have had the exact internet address that they needed. Web search tools give us the internet users the capability to find almost anything and everything there is on the internet. Without them, the web would be a crazy jumble of webpages that you would have to look through to find the one page you need. That would take just to much time.

There are privacy concerns though for some people, especially if the information the web searches are collecting get into the wrong hands. Do I really care if Google is calculating my misspellings or counting how many or even which web pages I go to? Not really. But for those people who are on the internet doing things they shouldn’t be doing, like looking at porn or other bad websites, they do care. Personally, even if the government was to get ahold of the information that I have searched for on the web, it wouldn’t matter much to me. I feel like the only people who should care are those who are doing things they shouldn’t in the first place.

One privacy issue that does concern me though is one that was brought up in the Google documentary about Google earth and other applications they offer. Is Google making it possible for potential terrorists to track and see what we are doing at all times, or to get other information that they should never have access to? To much access to the wrong people can be extremely harmful to the security of the US. We have already learned the implications it can cause (9/11). So everyone, especially huge companies like Google or other search engines should be extremely sensitive to this.

I think that if Microsoft and Yahoo combine, they will be able to create a MEGA-search engine. One with all sorts of capabilities. Basically a one-stop shop that a person can go to, to create, search, store and distribute information. I think that it is quite possible that a search engine like that could take over the internet easily.