Regulating the Google machine?

Some thoughts on the issue of regulating search engines… will Google eventually wind up in cahoots with the government?

While doing a little research for class this week and setting up my iGoogle home page and Google Reader, I discovered a Wall Street Journal article, A new short story imagines Google as a bad big brother, that discusses the potentially invasive capabilities of search engines… specifically Google. The article includes an interview with science-fiction author Cory Doctorow (also an editor of BoingBoing), who’s new short story, “Scroogled,” was published in the last issue of Radar Magazine. As the WSJ describes it, his story creates a world in which Google turns into "Big Brother." Could this happen to the inventive, avant-garde company?

Google launched Google U.S. Government Search in 2006, which targets federal employees who often need to search across several government agencies. In fact, Google complied with the Chinese government's online regulations in order to launch the search services in that country. However, I think it is highly unlikely that Google would "team up" with the U.S. government at this point in time.

Regarding the question of regulation, some regulation may be a good thing to protect users, but the real question, as with any regulatory issue, is "where do we draw the line?"

Here we go a... blogging

The answer to my last question is yes. And yes, I'm obviously a bit behind on learning the official blog terms. Blogging is a word as recognized by Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary. According to this source blogging is a noun. And Wikipedia says blog can be used as a verb. So there you have it. I'm officially blogging.

my first blog post

Hmmm. Where to start? Purpose.

The point of this blog is to create a dialogue about Internet marketing. I'm an MBA student at DePaul University in Chicago and am taking a course on Internet marketing. One of our first assignments was to create a blog. So here it is - my first blog post. Although I probably would not have created a blog if it weren't for this class, I think this little adventure will be interesting... to use and to learn about the capabilities of blogs in marketing.

I've been a little hesitant and skeptical about setting up a blog or using such Internet services as MySpace and Facebook. It really has never appealed to me. Part of my disinterest was more about the time and effort involved in keeping the information up to date. We are inundated with tons of information daily and although it's amazing what technology has brought to our fingertips, it consumes a lot of time. So I've been slow to adapt some of these new technologies and applications, but I guess as a marketing student I need to get up to speed!

Setting up my first blog was extremely easy and actually kind of fun. Now lets see if I can keep up on blogging - is that an official verb?