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Is Google, as its creators Larry Page and Sergey Brin claim, 'uniquely
democratic' Well, it is certainly unique and Democratic, or at least it
was when it was founded.
Google works on the assumption that by putting a link on your page to
another site, you are casting a vote for that website. However, is this
assumption a reasonable one to make? The answer is no. The primary, and
perhaps most fundamental flaw in this is that people can put more than one
link on their page. If some people have more votes than others, then
surely this undermines the democratic fabric on which Google is said to be
based. Furthermore, people often pay for links on high ranking sites - we
call this advertising. Google reads every link on a page, it has no way of
knowing whether it was paid for or not. Can a system where votes can
easily be bought, ever be described as democratic, even in the loosest
sense.
"If some people have more votes than others, then surely this undermines
the democratic fabric on which Google is said to be based."
Another crack in Google's claim to be democratic is the fact that some
votes are worth more than others. The higher a site ranks on Google, the
higher the value of its votes. This seems reasonable, a high ranking site
must have useful content, therefore it is likely to link to another site
with valuable content. However, it is not the fairness of Google's system. |
