Question Googles mission statement boldly claims to make information universally accessible, is this really the case?
I decided to begin by asking the ‘Google’ search engine the question
http://www.google.co.uk/ “is Google universal” The first site listed in the possible results from 1 - 10 of about 8,420,000 for “is Google universal” was listed under the title “Google 2.0: Google Universal Search”
http://searchengineland.com/google-20-google-universal-search-11232.phpThe meta name for the description for the above site ‘search engine land’ described itself as being "Search Engine Land is a must read hub for news and information about search engine marketing, optimization and how search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft Live.com and Ask.com work for searchers."
The site offers a board spectrum of search engines which gives at least some support towards the sites provenance. The sites main purpose it seems is to inform and offers a very in depth look into how search engines operate, the different types of terminology used and it is broken down into clear organised topics. The user is able to search through both internal and external links and breaks its main section topics into different ‘land’ types. The site is not only centred on the subject of ‘Google’ but provides information to ‘Yahoo! Land’ and ‘Microsoft Land’ among others.
The site appears to be based mainly in providing the audience with information as supposed to giving its views on how ‘good’ it feels the information to be. I felt it should be taken into account how ever this site was the first in a long list of ‘Google’ listed sites, and with it being able to provide such an detailed look into the subject of “
Google 2.0: Google Universal Search” with little to no information to what the site inabilities are.
The article dated May 16, 2007 at 2:33pm talks about when Google was “undertaking the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages. The new system officially rolls out today for anyone using Google.com and searching in English. Not everyone will see it at first, but over the course of the next several days, Universal Search should be more, well, universal. ”
The article goes on to explain the process of how search engines group information about various different sites through the implementation of vertical searching, all leading to the articles final conclusion for “the supremacy of web page search”
Gauging on how the website saw Googles implementation for making its information universally accessible, through the incorporation of a multitude vertical search services ultimately all leading back to Google "You almost need a search engine for all our search engines," said Google’s Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, in talking with me about today’s Universal Search news. "We’re so excited about taking all these different silos of information and making them all into one."
But does the supremacy over web page searching ultimately give Google the ability in achieving its mission statement of claiming to make information universally accessible. It would mean anyone accessing information through the internet would through direct or in direct contact would be using part of ‘Googles’ universal service. If a survey carried out by ‘Hitwise UK’ on Leading Search Engines based on UK Internet usage, ranked by volume of searches for the 4 weeks ending September 27, 2008. Google would certainly be going about the right way of doing it, ranking position ‘1’ with a volume of 73.28% with
www.google.co.uk and position ‘2’ with
www.google.com with 14.30%; the two other competitors noted on the site not even achieving above 5%.
http://www.hitwise.co.uk/datacenter/searchengineanalysis.phpThe site ‘Hitwise’’ describes itself as providing “insights on how more than 8 million UK Internet users interact with more than 1 million websites, across 165+ industries.” The sites ‘Corporate Fact Sheet describes itself as “Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers. “It goes on to say that it covers the “search and conversion behaviour of 25 million Internet users” using ‘patented methodology’ for collecting its data.
It did seem to use of the term ‘Universal’ was being used more as branding name i.e. ‘Ultimate’ than actually being used in the contexts that the word was intended. As defined in ‘ TheFreeDictionary by Farlex’ “1. Of, relating to, extending to, or affecting the entire world or all within the world; worldwide: "This discovery of literature has as yet only partially penetrated the universal consciousness" Ellen Key.”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/universalI decided that more investigation was need to be looked into Googles actual mission statement of whether or not Google was trying to use the term ‘universal’ as a branding title or actually defining itself as being globally accessible, which according “Ellen Key” in the above quote ‘universally’ we still need to discover books, let alone the world wide web.
The opening line for the company overview for Googles corporate information. Is that it is “Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/corporate/ They seemed to have established themselves in the UK for the first part at-least. But what of being able to access Goggle globally across the World Wide Web?
As unlikely as it may seem it would not be impossible for countries imposing even the most globally strictest of censorship policies. Google does seem to be prepaid to negate its services in order for it to achieve its mission statement.
In an article published by the Guardian taken from the website ‘guardian.co.uk’
by Jane Martinson in Saturday January 27 2007 the article establishes the launch of the website in China in 2005. “The company modified the version of its search engine in China to exclude controversial topics such as the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Falun Gong movement”
Although the move did not prove to be profitable when “asked whether he regretted the decision, Mr. Brin admitted yesterday: "On a business level, that decision to censor... was a net negative." (Sergey Mikhailovich Brin
American entrepreneur who co-founded
Google.) However unscrupulous it did however establish the company further in its statement of universal presence. To further support this, the article mentions “said Mr. Page, who is worth billions.”I'm not worried about the money thing, it's just a hassle."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/jan/27/news.newmedia
The Guardian.co.uk was the winner of the ‘Website of the year’ by the British Press Awards 2008 and is updated regularly with the site claiming of being ‘Last updated three minutes ago’
Although Blogs often lacking in credibility, the majority being ‘self published’ and in being so they are not restricted by any other guidelines than that of the websites service providers.
The website ‘Yedda people, sharing, knowledge’ describes itself as being “Actively finding the best answers from the most relevant people. Just for you.” The site is clearly laid out and divides the majority of its content into three main categories. The first being “Ask – ask a question on any topic get personalized answers from relevant people.” “Answer- share your experience, give advice, tell your story, help others.” “Explore – see what people are asking, learn something new every day”
http://yedda.com/The website informs its audience that “We are building Yedda as a fun place to share, explore and discover knowledge - a place where you can connect with people having specialized knowledge or with people of interests similar to yours.”
http://yedda.com/about/On further exploration however, in viewing the ‘The Yedda services and ownership issues’ it states in bold font “Please be aware that using the Services is in no way a substitute for professional advice.” It does state that “Yedda reserves the right at all times to disclose any Content received from you as it deems necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request” in addition to “Yedda ACTIVELY monitors traffic for Fraud. If we, at our sole discretion, detect OR determine Fraud, your account will be made inactive pending further investigation. “
This does suggest to a certain degree of objectivity to the site if it posts are as strictly monitored as it states for its ‘terms of use policies’. It cannot be over looked however that however strict the sites policies the site is and states “We wish to make it clear that using the Yedda Services is by no means a substitute for seeking and receiving professional advice, including, without limitation, advice related to any medical issues and/or conditions whatsoever.”
http://yedda.com/terms/
In a Blog posted by ‘Lior Haner’ (No day in which you learn something is a complete loss) mentions, “According to some reports the Iranian regime has closed access to some of Google's services including search, Gmail and possibly Google earth as well. The clamp down was
reportedly a sanction of the country's censorship council. Although some sanctions may have already been lifted, it's possible that some Google services are still blocked due to government censorship.You can maybe try to see if
Google maps is not blocked or maybe
Microsoft's service. There is also software by NASA called
WorldWind that is very interesting. Actually, most of Iran is available through Google earth in high resolution. Here is the
nuclear reactor in Bushehr.”
http://yedda.com/questions/Google_Earth_available_country_1861172295211/
No matter how strong the countries regime it would seem that if not all then some of Googles services seemed to have filtered through, if not via the World Wide Web then perhaps via other means of communications. Would it then mean only being able to view a part of the Google universal umbrella mean it’s not going to truly be universal until it is possible to access all its many facets from ‘all’ points across space and time or perhaps that will be left until the completion of their next mission statement.
