How the idea began
Two Stanford University Computer Science students came up with the idea of starting the Google search engine in 1995 (Kollewe, 2008). Initially, Larry Page and Sergey Bryn unveiled the BackRub computer program that helped them to track and record data on the internet. The program had a data collection system, PageRank, which helped the two scholars to rank the importance of a website by counting and analyzing the relevancy of its pages. The two scholars used this technology to crest Google and later received funds from Sun Microsystem’s co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim to run the company. Bechtolsheim decided to fund the company after viewing a Google product demo. Later, Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, alongside other investors invested in the company which helped Larry and Bryn to open up the first Google offices in Menlo Park, California. Furthermore, the two scholars unveiled a mission statement for the company of organizing global information and ensuring it is accessible and useful to everyone (Kollewe, 2008). Google Company evidences Smythe’s blindspot argument, unbalanced political economy, and class-divided surveillance and capital accumulation.
The Blindspot Argument in Google’s Economic Advertising
Most internet users consider Google as a mere search engine. Furthermore, the Oxford English dictionary outlines the term “google” as a verb. However, Google’s management indicates that the company offers a variety of services related to software, technology, advertisement, and media (Lee, 2011). Indeed, Google depends on advertisements to generate revenue just like network television. The only difference between the two is the fact that Google integrates the advertising agency, the rating system, and the search engine. Overall, Google has designed the AdWords program that invites users to bid for keywords on the search result page (Tan, 2009). Google has further developed security mechanisms to ensure that the company performs the roles of providing content, rating, and advertising at the same time. Undoubtedly, this non-competitive nature of the program raises critical questions about the purpose of the company. Nevertheless, it is apparent that Google uses advertisements to sell keywords, content provision to sell search indexes, and rates to sell keyword statistics.
a) Keywords Commodity
In his blind spot argument, Smyrthe (1977) claimed that network television sells the viewers to the advertisers as both labor and products. In other words, x audience members watch a prime television show of which y percent have a median and above household income (Smythe, 1977). In such a scenario, the television network considers the audience a product using the demographics. Similarly, the researchers from the Alexa website reported that an average of 32.7 percent internet users in the globe utilized the Google search engine from June to August 2009. The statistics revealed that Google recorded the most site visits on the internet in that period. Furthermore, the researchers indicated that Google attracted a younger male generation from 18 years to 24 years who had internet access at home (Lee, 2011). Such information demonstrates how platforms can sell an audience as a demographic to advertisers.
On the contrary, Google cannot benefit from this information because users encounter different advertisements on, unlike television networks that subject viewers to the same advertisements at a time. Nevertheless, Google utilizes the keyword that particular user input to determine the appearance of a certain ad. Precisely, Google advertisers check the most frequent keywords in the AdWords Keyword Tool that helps them to target users with different sets of ads at a given time (Sadowski, 2016). For instance, researchers at Alexa Company discovered that users input the keyword “Boston skyline” 18,100 times in July 2019. On the contrary, users only typed the keyword “Boston skylines” 73 times (Lee, 2011). Indeed. Advertisers, in this case, would have offered a higher bid for the keyword “Boston skyline” than for the keyword “Boston skylines” since it appeared in more hits.
Undoubtedly, there is a significant relationship between the number of viewers and the keyword hits. While television audiences have no option but to watch the same set of ads from the network, internet users play a significant role by searching the desired subject. Furthermore, internet users only type in a limited number of keywords such that they will only search topics of interest (Lee, 2011). For this reason, advertisers comprehend the popular keywords and the demographics of the audience which helps them to develop appropriate ads.
b) Ratings
Meehan (1984) developed an essay “Ratings and the Institutional Approach: A third Answer to the Commodity Question” to demonstrate that the rating industry creates the audience commodity (Lee, 2011). Meehan later developed another essay in 1993 that proved how ratings report data and help the media agencies to regulate the advertising rate. Indeed, some rating companies such as Nelson Online regularly measure the online audience using television rating mechanisms. Precisely, the researchers in the company engage internet users and request them to monitor their online activities. Furthermore, the firms have developed diaries and surveys that help them to obtain crucial data such as the most preferred websites by the users. Similarly, modern platforms utilize cookies on user’s computers to track their online behaviors. For instance, Google introduced the Toolbar application that helps the company to track the sites that users visit and the amount of time they spend on a particular site. Google’s management suggested in 2003 that the Toolbar ensures that the search results are more relevant to specific users (Lee, 2011). For instance, Google provides users who search for the keywords “Boston skyline” and “New England pictures” with webpages that feature the North Eastern United States photos in future search results. On the contrary, Google provides users who search for the keywords “Boston skyline” and “Boston trip” with webpages that feature travel-related topics in the future search results.
Advertisers utilize Google’s AdWord program to determine popular keywords and their competitiveness (Tan, 2009). Indeed, some popular keywords might not be competitive if the advertisers do not bid for them. For instance, internet users input the keyword “war Iraq” more frequently than “mortgage lenders’ in July 2009. However, the “mortgage lender” keyword recorded a higher exchange value compared to the word “war Iraq.”
c) The Search Results Commodity
Scholars involved in the blindspot debate primarily focus on the economic basis of the media and the ideologies they generate for the audience (Lee, 2011). Hence, it is important to understand the ideologies that Google promotes and the free content that Google offers to attract internet users throughout the world. Google undoubtedly does not generate content but a platform that organizes information for users. In other words, the concept of Google’s search engine is not to produce content but to organize information. Indeed, search engines are objective but the ideology behind the design portrays the organization, presentation, and commodification of the information. Precisely, one of Google’s philosophy is that fast is better than slow and that the company acknowledges the importance of instant gratification. For this reason, Google provides the information about how long a search takes such as 0.16 seconds for “New England foliage” and 0.33 seconds for ‘Boston skyline.” Notably, users tend to perform more searches because of the fast speed and motivations for more information and thus Google targets them with more ads.
Google’s search engine not only satisfies user’s insatiable desire for more information but also offers a platform for users to explore further on the subject. For instance, individuals who wanted to view photos of Boston skyline before the digitization of images had to make a trip to the local library. As a result, people would only look for the most critical and pertinent information. However, Google’s search engine generates a variety of images in less than a second and thus gives users a chance to view even the unimportant information. Furthermore, Google benefits as they can target the user with a set of advertisements when he or she inputs more keywords ((Lee, 2011).
Google also has a principle that there is always more information out there. Precisely, Google researchers have a goal to provide users with information about everything in the world. They believe that it is their responsibility to index the endless information to users seeking answers from everywhere in the globe. Indeed, Google’s ease of duplicating information helps users to gather data without having to do field research. For instance, a variety of sites offer similar celebrity news. Hence, new sites do not have to look for original information but can replicate from other sources. The importance of this practice is the fact that these new sites gather topics of interest that attract leaders and generate profits (Lee, 2011). Overall, Google has faced challenges in controlling the spawning of celebrity pages and regulating the popularity of commercial platforms. Nevertheless, Google’s search engine has proved that people can obtain the world’s information in less than a second. Furthermore, users who search more input more keywords which raise the bid and exchange value for the advertising companies.
Google’s Political Economy
Larry Page and Sergey Bryn transformed Google into a public company on August 19, 2004. Later, Google bought YouTube platform in 2006 and DoubleClick advertising Company in 2008 (Sinclair, 2016). Precisely, 2010 was the most profitable year for Google since it started as the company realized US$ 8.5 billion in profits (Fuchs 2011). Furthermore, Google SEC Fillings Annual Report of 2010 shows that the company’s profits rapidly increased from 2004 to 2010. However, the new world economic crisis that hit capitalist economies in 2008 affected Google as the company’s market value dropped from $147.66 billion in 2007 to $106.69 billion in 2008 (Fuchs, 2011). Nevertheless, the company’s profit remained constant during the crisis and reached an all-time high in 2009 and 2010. On the contrary, most media companies that used advertisements to generate profits had declined profits as a result of the global crisis in 2008 (Merle, 2018). Google Company on its part appeared to benefit from this crisis as other competitors focused on maximizing costs and direct results from their advertising campaigns. Google used this opportunity to offer information about controlling and analyzing the effectiveness of campaigns that attracted users from the affected companies.
Google marketers have often claimed that it is an egalitarian firm and that its top managers earn modest salaries. On the contrary, critics dispute this claim based on the fact that Bryn, Page, and Schmidt control not only more than 90 percent of the common stock but also most of the voting privileges (Fuchs 2011). According to a Forbes report in 2018, Page, Schmidt, and Bryn are some of the richest people in the United States and have increased their personal wealth by a factor of 4 over the past recent years (Forbes Corporate Communication). In other words, Google portrays the common norm in a capitalist firm where few individuals accumulate wealth by exploiting the majority. For instance, Bryn, Page, Schmidt, and Doerr controlled 70.1 percent of total voting power and owned 93.2 percent of Google’s type B common stock in 2010. In comparison, more than 20,000 employees working for Google and over 900 million users do not have any voting power or ownership in the company (Fuchs 2011). Interestingly, it is the users and employees who have worked hard to produce the company’s surplus-value and make it be one of the most profitable firms in the world today.
Google’s Surveillance and Model of Capital Accumulation
Google appears to have not featured its two largest buildings of Googleplex in its Street View application. The company has also blurred the available pictures of building number 43 that appears after searching the small street next to the building. Furthermore, Google has taken advantage of trees to ensure that a user does not view other Google buildings on Street View. On the contrary, Google has faced criticism on several occasions for violating privacy after photographing private residences (Rundle, Bader, Richards, Neckerman, & Teitler, 2011). Undoubtedly, Google exhibits a class-divided action such that they hide the visual structure of their headquarters but digitize information by taking pictures of ordinary people’s houses.
Some scholars argue that Google enhances the free economy by giving something for free in order to sell something else for profit. Precisely, Google allows users to access services for free and as a result, targets them with profitable advertisements (Fuchs 2011). However, most users are not aware that Google’s tracks their daily online activities and obtain valuable intelligence after analyzing their behaviors (Valentino- De Vries, 2019). Nevertheless, Google’s role in a free economy does not guarantee that the company is committed to safeguarding the user’s privacy. Indeed, Google appears to be only interested in the exploitation of user pictures to help them develop an effective advertisement strategy. According to Schmidt, Google hopes to store every user’s information that will help the company to offer them targeted necessary information and news. Bryn on his part suggested the creation of a Google Intelligence application that would augment brains to Google (Kelly, 2018). For instance, the application would enable a phone to analyze a user’s thoughts and respond with an effective solution. Furthermore, Bryn idealized about creating a little version of Google that people could attach to their brains (Fuchs 2011). Undoubtedly, this would prove to be the extreme form of constant bio-political exploitation since Google would now be able to transform all the human thoughts into a commodity and sell them as data to advertisement agencies (Valentino- De Vries, 2019).
Conclusion
Larry Page and Sergey Nryn used their BackRub computer program to create the Google search engine. The two scholars from Stanford University hoped to use this platform to organize global information and make it accessible and useful to everyone. Since then, Google has evidenced many political-economic aspects. First, Smythe’s blindspot argument applies to Google’s economic advertising as the company perceives keywords, ratings, and search results as commodities. Second, Google’s political economy contradicts the claim that it is an egalitarian firm and that its top managers earn modest wages. Finally, Google’s surveillance and mode of capital accumulation exhibit a class-divided action and raise a concern about the safety of user data.
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