BIS 332 AAssignmentsReaction Paper 2

24 GOOGLE

Information Organizer

Micky Lee

As of December 2014, Google Inc. was listed as the 46th largest corporation in the U.S. and the 162nd largest company in the world in terms of revenue.1 Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and ex-CEO Eric Schmidt, are the 20th, 21st, and 148th wealthiest individuals, respectively, in the world.2 In addition, executives and investors rank Google the third most admired U.S. corporation, the most financially sound, the third most innovative, and the fourth most well managed.3 Because of its large revenues, the immense wealth of its founders, and its huge investment in innovation and employees, many see Google as a company that needs to be admired, not criticized.

The “free” services offered by Google, its fun and energetic work environment, the boyish appearances of Page and Brin, and the simplicity of its homepage all imply that Google is an unconventional corporation—so unconventional that it may just happen to make a lot of money and employ a lot of smart people. This image of Google has effectively masked the economic, political, and cultural power that the corporation holds in the business of information.

Even though Google has received criticism in recent years because of its violation of individuals’ privacy by photographing pedestrians for Google Maps, its compromise of national security by showing an aerial view of the White House, its short-termed submission to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by sharing political dissidents’ personal data, and its infringement of copyright laws by scanning library books, the criticism focuses on Google not following established rules and regulations. In fact, some critics, such as the founder of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson, argue that the faults lie on the outdated laws impairing a free and open society advocated by Google. Few critics focus on Google’s capitalist tendencies to accumulate surplus capital, commodify public goods, create a near monopoly, or exploit workers. To this end, Google’s ideological power to maintain itself as the world’s primary information organizer is detrimental to achieving a truly free, equal, and open society because this single corporation controls too much information.

History

Like a lot of Silicon Valley companies, the founding of Google follows a certain script: non- conforming geniuses innovate to better humankind and challenge established power. As the often- recited story goes, Page and Brin met at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, and disliked each other at first before discovering their shared dislike of Internet search engines that take in

advertising money and influence search results. The goal of creating a search engine with objective search results gave birth to an internal one hosted by Stanford. Wanting to show the infinite power of the Internet, Page and Brin initially named their company Googol. A spelling error made it Google, now a synonym with a, if not the, search engine.

As in most Silicon Valley tales, Google first started in the garage of an employee. Within a few years, it set up its “campus” in Mountain View, California, a residential area in the greater San Jose area. Unlike most Silicon Valley companies, Google has refused to become an “adult company” like Apple or Oracle. Anecdotes such as employees spending lazy afternoons competing in volleyball matches on the lawn, the former chef for the Grateful Dead creating healthy menus for the canteen, and the founders cruising indoor on rollerblades all make Google appear like a never-never land of perpetual student life. Whether these anecdotes were carefully selected to mask Google’s capitalist tendencies or to illustrate a new kind of post-Fordist corporation, they are too simplistic to show how the political economy of information works in a capitalist society. In other words, Google would not have existed in another political economic system.

Page the CEO and Brin the Director hold power in both management and ownership. While a lot of corporations have separated ownership from management, Page and Brin combine both. This is an anomaly rather than the norm. What it means is that not only do Page and Brin make final decisions on the company’s directions, but they also reap in the profits. Therefore, there are incentives to gear the company towards profit-making because not only can they please the shareholders, but they can also pocket in the profits. Therefore, to critique Google is to critique how it produces surplus value from information in a capitalist society.

Economic Profile

In early 2015, Google’s revenue reached $17.3 billion.4 In terms of revenue, Google is a large company. Only seven technology or telecommunications companies are larger than Google: Apple, AT&T, Verizon, HP, IBM, Amazon.com, and Microsoft.5

Google Inc. went public in 2004, but it has been disclosing its revenue since 2000. Table 24.1 indicates the staggering growth of the company from 2000 to 2013. The increase in revenue from 2004 to 2013 was 1,700%. Other than a slow period in 2009, which featured only a 9% increase, Google achieved double-digit or even triple-digit growth every year. Although not explicitly stated, the decline of Google’s 2009 revenue most likely resulted from the effects of the global financial

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TABLE 24.1 Google Revenue, 2000–2013

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Revenues (in $1,000) 19,108 86,426 439,508 1,465,934 3,189,223 Increase from the previous year (%) n/a 352 409 233 118 Net income (loss) (in $1,000) (14,690) 6,985 99,656 105,648 399,119

2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Revenues (in $1,000) 6,138,560 10,604,917 16,593,986 21,795,550 23,650,583 Increase from the previous year (%) 92 73 56 31 9 Net income (loss) (in $1,000) 1,465,397 3,077,446 4,203,720 4,226,858 6,520,448

2010 2011 2012 2013

Revenues (in $1,000) 29,321,000 37,905,000 50,175,000 59,825,000 Increase from the previous year (%) 24 29 32 19 Net income (loss) (in $1,000) 8,505,000 9,737,000 10,737,000 12,920,000

Source: Micky Lee, Free Information? The Case against Google (Champaign, IL: Common Ground, 2010)

crisis that began in 2007–2008. There is no nation-state that has ever achieved such a growth in a decade, let alone the wages of an average worker!

It is also interesting that Google has come to rely on non-U.S. markets for more than half of its revenues, more specifically between 51 and 56% from 2011 to 2013.6

Up until the 2008 annual report, Google listed Yahoo and Microsoft as its two main competitors. Google claims that it is competing with many companies in the markets for search engines and social networking. However, many searches go through its search engine and mobile platform. In the 2013 Annual Report, Google listed its competitors as:

• General purpose search engines: Yahoo, Microsoft’s Bing; • Vertical search engines and e-commerce websites: Kayak, Monster.com, WebMD, and

Amazon; • Social networks: Facebook, Twitter; • Advertising: traditional means such as television, newspapers, billboards, and the yellow page; • Mobile applications: various companies; • Providers of online products and services: new and established companies that offer

communication, information, and entertainment services.7

Four companies dominated the web browser market internationally as of November 2014:8

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer had a 58.94% market share, Google Chrome had 20.57%, Firefox had 13.26%, and Apple Safari had 5.90%. In the search engine market in the same period, Google had a 61.85% market share, China-based Baidu had 24.88%, Microsoft’s Bing had 8.92%, and Yahoo had 3.83%. In the mobile/tablet operating system market, two companies dominated the market in the same period: Google Android had 45.70% market shares and Apple’s iOS had 44.61%.9

Despite Google’s claims that it has multiple competitors, only Microsoft and Apple compete with them across markets, and these three companies are aware of their strength and weaknesses in select markets.

Corporate Properties

Google has four major divisions: (1) search, (2) advertising, (3) consumer platforms, and (4) enterprise. The company acquired Motorola Mobility in 2011, but did not rename it because Google wanted to run it as a separate business.10 Google’s interest in this high-profile acquisition can be explained by the Android platform. By acquiring Motorola Mobility, Motorola handsets now use the Android platform. However, in January 2014, Google sold Motorola Mobility to Hong Kong-based Lenovo, and all Motorola smartphones continue to use the Android operating system.

Not all Google-branded products and services are developed in-house. The company acquires start-ups and usually renames the products. Google only renames those services intended for end users (such as Google Earth, Google Maps). For services that already attract a sizable number of visitors, such as YouTube, Google did not rename the service.

In recent years, Google has acquired start-ups to enhance existing products such as Google+. Previously, the company acquired them and made them stand-alone products. For example, the start-up Keyhole eventually became Google Maps. As the 2013 Annual Report states, “our brand is one of the most recognized in the world.”11

Because of the well-recognized and respected Google brand, the company rarely engages in joint ventures with other corporations. Instead of joint ventures, Google invests in start-ups through Google Ventures (www.gv.com) by supplying seed, venture, and growth-stage funding. The start- ups may or may not relate to Google’s core business, but they have to relate to digitized information.

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For example, Google invested in 23 and Me—a genetic mapping company founded by Sergey Brin’s wife Anne Wojcicki—and Uber—an online ride-sharing service.

Google also negotiates deals and forms partnerships with established non-media companies, traditional media companies, and other hi-tech firms for both short- and long-term projects (see Table 24.2).

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TABLE 24.2 Google’s Select Deals and Partnerships, 2000–2014

2000 Yahoo—partnered to provide web search services. Partnership terminated in 2008 because of potential violation of anti-trust.

2001 Universo Online (Latin America)—provides web search services in Latin America.

2002 AOL—provides web search services; bought 5% of AOL shares.

2005 T-Mobile—Google search services on mobile phone.

2006 Universal Music Group, CBS, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Sundance Channel—broadcast videos on YouTube. National Geographic and Discovery Channel networks—partners with Google Earth to provide contents to enhance users’ experience when surfing the globe. Various mobile phone companies: Motorola, Sony Ericsson, Vodafone (UK), Nokia, Beeline (Vietnam), KDDI (Japan), NTT DoCoNo (Japan), Bharti Airtel (India), China Mobile, Telefonica (Latin America; Spain), Samsung (Korea)—Google search services on mobile phone. Inuit, Verizon, AT&T—helped include more business information online.

2007 CNN—YouTube’s partnership to broadcast Presidential debate in real time. IBM—supercomputing initiative with students.

2008 Earthlink and AOL—AdWords appear in both search engines. T-Mobile—offers G1 phone with Android operating system. Cleveland Clinic—provides online medical records.

2010 Amazon.com and CNBC—provide contents for Google TV. AOL—provides web search for AOL portal.

2011 Jay-Z, Wall Street Journal, and Disney—create channels on YouTube. Heineken—advertising deal with the brewer to target users in Europe. General Motors—provides Google Apps to employees. Intel—improves its chip for Android.

2013 Audi—develops driverless car.

2014 VSP Global—a vision-care company—and Luxottica—owner of Ray-Ban and Oakley eyeglasses—offers Google Glass. Samsung—cross-licencing deal on technology patents. Credit Karma—invests in this online credit site.

Source: Micky Lee, Free Information? The Case against Google (Champaign, IL: Common Ground, 2010)

While it may not be surprising that Google’s Android mobile phone platform requests it to partner with cell phone manufacturers, such as T-Mobile, Google also works with traditional media content providers such as Wall Street Journal and Disney. In 2009, News Corp’s chairman Rupert Murdoch accused news aggregators such as Google News of stealing news headlines from online newspapers.12

Murdoch’s stance did not stop Wall Street Journal, a News Corp company, from partnering with Google in 2011. Similarly, Hulu—partially owned by Disney—was launched in 2009 to counter illegal contents uploaded on Google’s YouTube. In 2011, Google helped Disney to launch its channel on YouTube. While a “new media” company such as Google may appear to be a counter force of traditional media companies, they may help each other to consolidate power.

Typical Strategies

Google has a large budget for in-house research and development (R&D), which increased by 185% between 2008 and 2013, from $2.8 to $8.0 billion. Close to 40% of employees work in R&D, which is more than those working in sales and marketing. Google also gives employees 20% of their work time to develop their own projects, some of which are later adopted by the company. For instance, Google News was a service developed from such a scheme.

As mentioned, Google releases new products and services by acquiring start-ups. Table 24.3 shows Google’s acquisitions from 2001 to 2013. Some acquisitions have become popular services for end users (such as Google Earth and Android); others are for advertising professionals (such as DoubleClick and AdMoc); yet some others have not been promoted as a Google’s service, such as Zagat and Vevo.

Unlike traditional media companies, Google is diversified in its products and services, but not diversified in its stream of revenue. Until 2012, more than 90% of its revenue came from advertising alone.13 After acquiring Motorola Mobility in 2012, 10% of its revenue came from hardware and mobile technology.14

While Google’s services and products are diversified, information is the core of its business. Google releases services and products online frequently for devoted fans to test the beta versions. Google’s corporate structure has been changing rapidly since its inception. The following four areas sum up its current operation.15

Search

Google Search is a tool for locating information on the World Wide Web, which can be used on desktop, tablet, and mobile devices and is available to users for free in exchange for ad displays. In addition, there are specific search services such as Google Maps, Google Scholars, and Google News.

Advertising: AdWords and AdSense

AdWords is an auction system in which advertisers “buy” keywords. Advertisers can either buy the “number of clicks” package (i.e., pay when a user clicks on the ad) or the “number of impressions” package (i.e., pay by the number of times the ad appears). AdSense is a partnership program with content providers (such as online newspapers and personal blogs) which display the ads on their sites.

Consumer Content and Platform

Other than Google hardware, most Google services are offered to users for free. Some have ad displays and others require users to agree let Google collect information that users input online. These services include:

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TABLE 24.3 Google’s Select Acquisitions, 2001–2013

2001 Deja.com’s Usenet Discussion Service (renamed as Google Groups)

2003 Pyro Labs (renamed as Blogger)

2004 Keyhole (renamed as Google Earth) Picasa

2005 Urchin (renamed as Google Analytics) Android

2006 YouTube; acquired price: $1.65 billion Jotspace (renamed as Google Sites) Dmarc Broadcasting (radio advertising product); $102 million @Last software (renamed as Google SketchUp) Upstartle LLC’s Writely.com (online document editing)

2007 Postini (enterprise e-mail capabilities) DoubleClick (display ad); $3.2 billion Salesforce.com (on demand customer relationship management applications with AdWords) Jaiku (a Finnish company on microblogging, similar to Twitter) Gapminder Foundation (a Swedish company on ad placement in video game) Adscape (ad placement in video game)

2008 ZAO Begun of Rambler Media (a Russian company that works on online advertising); $140 million—deal blocked by the Russian government.

2009 Recaptcha (started in Carnegie Mellon University; web fraud prevention for book scanning for internal distribution) On2 Technology (video compression software); $105 million

2010 AdMob (for developers and advertisers) Mechanicalzoo (question-and-answer web service; similar to like Yahoo! Answers); $50 million ITA software for online travel; $700 million

2011 Motorola Mobility; $12.5 billion Zagat (restaurant reviews in print and online); $151 million Admeld (interactive and graphical ads); $400 million

2012 Wildfire Interactive (social media marketing); $450 million BufferBox (e-commerce); $17 million

2013 Waze (face recognition software; map start-up); $966 million Vevo; bought 7% stake in providing contents on YouTube

2014 Skybox (satellite firm); $500 million

Source: Micky Lee, Free Information? The Case against Google (Champaign, IL: Common Ground, 2010)

• Consumer software: Android is an open source mobile platform that can be “forked” by developers for mobile apps and can be installed by any handset manufacturer. Consumers can download the code for free.

• Consumer hardware: laptops, tablets, smartphones, and devices that stream online TV content. • Social networking: Google+. • Online store: consumers can buy apps, music, books, and movies. • Cloud computing: consumers can use Google Drive to collaborate and share documents with

other users. • Online payment: consumers can use Google Wallet to pay bills online.

Google competes with Apple in the consumer content and platform segment. Apple dominates the hardware market with iPad, iPhone, and Mac laptops, as well as the online retail market with Apple Store. Google also competes with PayPal for online payment services.

Enterprise

Accounting for a small percentage of Google’s revenues, the Enterprise division provides business solutions to companies by offering tailored packaged software and premium services. For example, Google Earth Enterprise provides data visualization for architecture and oil refinery firms. This service is not offered for free.

New Developments

Google constantly releases new products and terminates old ones, largely because it has an abundant amount of surplus capital to invest in R&D and third-party products. Google’s physical assets are small for a corporation of its size. Other than its headquarters in Mountain View, California, it only owns office space in New York, Paris, and Dublin, as well as data storage facilities in America, Europe, and Asia.

Because Google produces surplus value, not through the production of physical goods such as automobiles or natural resources but through the production of intangible goods such as algorithms, information, and intellectual property, its surplus capital is not primarily invested in physical plants and manual labor. In 1964, AT&T’s market worth was $267 billion and employed close to 760,000 people. Today, Google’s market worth is $370 billion but only employs 55,000 people.16

Because Google is an information organizer, it does not invest its surplus capital in the labor of information production. It exploits information from the public domain (such as books with expired copyright protections as well as maps produced by governments) and from Internet users. To harness the “wealth of the web,” it offers beta versions online for users to test and comment. More often than not, Google beta testers are honored to be the pioneers to use a Google product, a case in point being the now folded Google Eyeglasses project: money could not buy users a pair to test, only the insiders could test them.17

Lastly, the company prides itself on inventing cutting-edge technology and on being “democratic.” Therefore, some of the projects in which Google invests have no “market” per se. For example, its social networking Okrut (renamed as Google+) had never been a threat to Facebook—it was only popular in India. Google may have the capital to heavily advertise and market its social networking site, but it decided not to do so. In another example, Google discontinued its Google Health service because WebMD and Mayo Clinic were more popular sites. The failure of these projects may not signal a lack of strategies, but reflect an embarrassment of riches: that it has too many resources to spare, so minor setbacks do not dent the company.

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Political Profile

According to NASDAQ.com as of December 2014, close to 65% of Google stocks are owned by institutional investors. The top five stockholders are: Fidelity (retirement, funds, and online trading firm based in Boston), Vanguard (investment management firm based in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania), State Street (financial services firm based in Boston), Price T Rowe (investment management firm based in Baltimore, Maryland), and Barclays (banking and financial services firm based in London). These five institutional shareholders also own a significant amount of stocks of Google’s rivals such as Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Baidu. Institutional ownership accelerates the concentration of monopoly capital because the investors probably do not want these corporations to compete with each other to the extent that it drives down stock prices.

About one-third of Google stock is owned by individuals, and the top three individual shareholders are Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Omid Kordestani (Google’s Chief Business Officer).18

Ties to the State and Lobbying Efforts

Google is not a contractor to the U.S. government, but it has direct ties to Washington. Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt and Director Michael Mortiz were vocal supporters of Obama’s candidacy for the U.S. Presidency in 2008. Obama visited Google Headquarters to answer employees’ questions during his first campaign. At the time of writing, Eric Schmidt is a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. According to OpenSecrets.org, Google employees and their immediate families donated approximately $800,000 to the 2008 presidential campaign of Obama, making it the fourth most generous donor.19

Google’s ties to Washington are also represented through lobbying. According to the Wall Street Journal,20 Google’s spending on lobbying has increased by 100% in a decade since it went public in 2004. As of 2014, Google is the third largest corporation lobbyist after medical insurer Blue Cross/Blue Shield and manufacturer Dow Chemical. That year, it topped the big spender list among all technology and telecommunications companies—it spent $16 million on lobbying while Microsoft only spent half of that.21

It has also set up an office in Capitol Hill in 2013. Google lobbies policies in areas that benefit its products and services, such as laws and regulations regarding copyrights, patent, and trademark; net neutrality; immigration; and driverless cars.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission had investigated Google’s unfair practices, such as favoring their own services in search results and planting cookies in a competitor’s browser.22 It also lobbies the EU Government to relax its regulations on Internet privacy.23 If technology can’t fix the issues, money certainly can.

Corporate Board Members and Interlocks with Other Organizations

Google’s board of directors consists of 11 members who are drawn from Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms, hi-tech companies (such as Intel and Amazon), and elite higher education institutions that are strong in computing sciences (such as Stanford University and the MIT).

The board is supposed to safeguard the shareholders’ interests, to make sure that the company is doing the right things to offer handsome dividends to both institutional and individual investors. However, the board members cannot be simply drawn from any industries and institutions—they are those with whom Google has a close working relationship. An angel investor would have insider knowledge of Google’s direction, and hence would fund start-ups that may eventually be acquired by Google. Similarly, Google would like angel investors to share knowledge of what

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TABLE 24.4 Google’s Board of Directors

Director Present and Past Titles

Larry Page CEO of Google

Eric E. Schmidt Executive Chairman of Google Chairman and CEO of Novell (1997–2001) Various positions at Sun Microsystems (1983–1997) Board of director of Apple (2006–2009) (resigned because of increased competition between Google and Apple)

Sergey Brin Director of Google

L. John Doerr General Partner of Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, a venture capitalist firm based in Silicon Valley Board member of Amyris, Inc., a synthetic biology company Board member of Zynga, a social game services President of Amazon (1996–2010)

Diane B. Greene Former CEO and President of Vmware, a software company based in Silicon Valley Board member of Inuit, a business and management solutions company Board member of the MIT Corporation

John L. Hennessy President of Stanford University Former board member of Cisco Former board member of Atheors Communications

Ann Mather Former Chief Financial Officer of Pixar, an animation company now owned by Disney Board member of Glu Mobile, a publisher of mobile games Board member of Netflix Board member of Shutterfly, a digital image retailer Board member of Solazyme, a renewable oil and bioproducts company

Alan R. Mulally Former President, CEO and board director of Ford Motors Former Executive VP of Boeing Advisory board member of NASA Board member of the University of Washington Board member of the University of Kansas Board member of the MIT Corporation Advisory board member of the U.S. Air Force Scientific

Paul S. Otellini Former CEO and President of Intel

K. Ram Shriram Managing Partner of Sherpalo Ventures, an angel venture investment company based in Silicon Valley Former Vice President of Amazon Member of the Board of Trustees of Stanford University

Shirley M. Tilghman Former President of Princeton University Trustee of the Advantage Testing Foundation Trustee of Amherst College Trustee of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Trustee of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Trustee of the Leadership for a Diverse America

Vint Cerf Chief Internet Evangelist of Google Widely known as the father of the Internet because of his invention of TCP/IP protocols

kinds of start-ups are in the industry. An elite institution would like its graduates to be employed by Google, hence it can enhance its marketing value to prospective students. Similarly, Google would like a higher education institution to train students to be value-producing, prospective employees of Google. The power of Google not only comes from its revenue, but also its ability to provide mutual benefits with other corporations and organizations.

Social Marketing

Google funds initiatives that make the world better through the use of information. It also donates money to relieve natural disasters and encourages employees to do voluntary work. Google.org is the philanthropic wing of the corporation. Google.org gives out global impact awards to entrepreneurs in the areas of education and computer science, environment, development, and women and girls. For example, Google funded a project that develops software to analyze gender portrayals in the media. It also funds a project to eliminate images of sexually exploited children online. Google.org also awards Google Impact Challenge to non-profits in Japan, India, Brazil, Australia, the U.K., and the Bay Area. It asks the public to vote on non-profit proposals that use innovation to make the world better. The projects may or may not be related to information. In addition to the awards and challenges, Google also donates money to causes that may or may not deal with information, such as disaster reliefs.

The company has three other public policy initiatives:

• Google Ideas: A think tank that connects users, experts, and engineers to use innovation to confront threats resulted from conflicts and repressions.

• Google for Education: A resource site for educators to connect with each other and to offer discounted Google products for the classroom.

• Google Green: Policies to reduce carbon footprint and to increase energy efficiency.

Cultural Profile

Symbolic Universe and Ideology

The previous two sections laid out the economic and political power of Google. Google may appear to be an unconventional corporation, or an antagonist to traditional media companies. For a company of its size, Google does not own many physical assets, it does not produce tangible goods, and it is a company that reliably generates revenue almost exclusively from advertising. Because Google is so flush with surplus capital, it is able to exert power on the political domain by lavishing money on political campaigns and civil society projects. Its stance on merging business with innovation also attracts notable leaders to join its board from academia and industry.

While popular books such as The Google Story and Googled: The End of the World as We Know It24 like to suggest Google’s success has roots in its revolutionary technology and life-changing services, they do not explain how Google’s slogans of “organizing the world’s information” and “don’t do evil” create and maintain the ideology of “more information is preferred to less” and “access to the world’s information is attainable.” Without this well-maintained ideology, Google would not be able to capitalize on information.

Google’s Annual Reports usually start with a letter from the founders that reiterates Google’s ideology of information, business model, and talent. The following lists the main themes and illustrative quotes under three categories:

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Information

• Online search can change users’ lives and the world: “Sergey and I founded Google because we believed that building a great search experience would improve people’s lives and, hopefully, the world”25; “I have always believed that technology should do the hard work—discovery, organization, communication—so users can do what makes them happiest: living and loving, not messing with annoying computers!”;26 “millions of people living under totalitarian regimes are able to glimpse freedom every day of their lives, albeit virtually”;27 “technology has also democratized communication and creation of information. Capabilities that were once available only to the largest corporations are now available to businesses, political movements, governments, and individuals alike.”28

• Technology only advances, not regresses: “Getting actions lightning fast is especially important on smaller devices like mobile phones”;29 “finding important technological areas where progress is currently slow, but could be made fast, is what Google is all about”;30 “the technology revolution also has an economic impact: it is enabling more and more people globally to make a living for themselves entirely online.”31

• Information is a form of artificial intelligence: “before you’ve even finished typing ‘weather’ into the search box we give you the weather because we’ve learned that’s most likely what you’re looking for”;32 “creating the perfect search engine remains our ultimate goal, but we’re still a long way from doing that, which is why we are not resting on our laurels”33; “we founded Google to help connect people to the information they need, and we have been obsessively focused on that goal ever since”;34 “what were once considered the far-flung corners of artificial intelligence research have now reached the mainstream.”35

• More information is better than less information: “There is a huge amount of data in the world that isn’t publicly available today”;36 “at the basic level, there is tremendous knowledge available in books and libraries that hasn’t made it onto the Internet”;37 “as devices multiply and usage changes (many users coming online today may never use a desktop machine), it becomes more and more important to ensure that people can access all of their stuff anywhere.”38

Business Model

• Please love Google (because we are different): “We have always wanted Google to be a company that is deserving of great love. But we recognize this is an ambitious goal because most large companies are not well-loved, or even seemingly set up with that in mind.”39

• Don’t do evil (to make money): “We have always believed that it’s possible to make money without being evil.”40

• Ambitious and risk-taking: “I’ve found that it’s easier to make progress on mega-ambitious goals than on less risky projects.”41

Talents

• Invest in employees: “Our goal is to hire the best at every level and keep them. In our experience your working environment is enormously important because people want to feel part of a family in the office, just as they do at home.”42

The Google ideology has been critiqued by scholars, but the focus tends to be on Google’s view on information, rather than on the business model and workers.43 For the last two areas, a political economy of communication provides a vantage point from which Google can be seen as a business and as capitalist social relations.

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The Googlization of Everything, Search Engine Society, and Deep Search are three scholarly books that critique Google’s views of information from a sociocultural perspective.44 Siva Vaidhyanathan uses the term “googlization” to describe how Google has permeated culture and has affected how users view themselves, the world, and human knowledge. These three books point out that Google’s search results are claimed to be objective, but they privilege results that are already popular. Consequently, Google provides good answers, but not the best answers, because the popular pages do not necessarily mean the best sources of information. At a macro level, Google “fractures a sense of common knowledge or common priorities.”45 The film Google and the World Brain46 further pointed out the problem of seeing artificial intelligence as the ultimate goal of information gathering. It suggests that Google’s unspoken aim is to collect as much information as possible so as to create a digital world of knowledge that would replace human-centered and oriented knowledge.

While critiques on Google’s view of information hint that Google is after all a business entity, they rarely theorize Google’s business model, especially its reliance on advertising revenue. I argue in “Google Ads and the Blindspot Debate”47 that Google is able to rely on advertising revenue because it has a vertically integrated system in which the company controls every step of the process by providing search results to users, by selling “keywords” to advertisers and by providing statistics to advertisers. In short, Google puts a value on a non-exhaustive, non-exclusive commodity (i.e., keywords) and internally validates its value. It is impossible to bid for keywords outside Google AdWords, and it is impossible to obtain search results statistics outside Google. Christian Fuchs and Dwayne Winseck holistically look at the capital accumulation process.48 Grounded in Marx’s M–C–M' (money–commodity–more money) model, Fuchs argues that because Google provides free services, the company’s commodity is not service, but users who are double objects of commodification.49 At the first level, they are Internet prosumers who provide data for Google at no cost. At the second level, they are subjected to advertisements and are sold as an audience commodity. The subject of the audience commodity in a user-generated-content era has renewed scholarly interest in what the media sell and what advertisers buy.50

Google’s ideology of being a great workplace for the smartest people obscures the social relations between capitalists and workers. The tale of the first handfuls of Google employees becoming millionaires has obscured the working conditions of the lowest-paid workers in the company. The fact that two of its former female executives—Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg—have become prominent executives in other hi-tech companies has also hidden gender disparities in the workplace. Christian Fuchs calls Google’s engineers a “labor aristocracy,”51 akin to skilled workers during the Industrial Revolution. Their enjoyment of higher wages made their lives more upper-middle-class than working-class laborers. However, the culture of “playbor” (play labor) instilled in the company extracts more value from the workers: the competitiveness of the work environment, the outstanding amenities, and the work culture all ask Google workers to endure long hours on campus. Little has been written on how the prolonged workday has disadvantaged women. The working mother image of Mayer and Sandberg does not apply to all working women at Google, because both are wealthy and privileged individuals. They were able to “make it” and “lean in” because of the paid productive and reproductive female labor that sustains themselves and their family. An example is Mayer eliminating the telecommuting option at Yahoo, which may hurt the work–life balance of working mothers. At the same time, after she returned from giving birth, she was privileged enough to have a nursery in her corner office and hire a full-time nurse to take care of the infant.52

There is an absence of data and discussion of how cheap labor creates surplus value for the company. For example, the secrecy of Google Books obscures who take up the tedious task of scanning the books, how much those workers are paid, where they work, and whether they are Google employees or not.53 Similarly, the work life of administrative and support staff at Google

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is also hardly written about. If attention were paid to the creation of surplus value by the manual labor at Google, then Google may not be such an unconventional company at all.

Example(s) of Popular Products/Services and Place in Culture

The number of Google users is staggering and is the envy of traditional media companies. However, Google’s motto is that users should spend as little time on its page as possible because the less time they spend on their page, the better the results are. The same cannot be said for Gmail and YouTube. The following figures indicate the usage of Google54 as of December 2014:

• Number of monthly Google searches: 11.944 billion (on average, more than one search per person on earth).

• Number of unique Google users: 1.17 billion (on average, one in seven persons on earth). • Number of YouTube users: 1 billion. • Number of Gmail users: 425 million.

In 2006, the Oxford Dictionary included “google” as part of the contemporary English vocabulary. Google is defined as a verb with the definition: “search for information about (someone or something) on the Internet using the search engine Google.” When a company name comes to represent its products or services (such as Xerox or Kleenex), it can be deemed as part of the daily life.

Cultural Exports

Google has localized sites in over 200 domains; most are grounded in a country, but some are linguistic territories (such as google.cat for Catalan countries) or occupied territories (such as google.ps for Palestine). There are more than 130 languages for the Google interface. Google is currently the most used search engine in every country except five: Russia, China, and South Korea, where their respective home-grown search engines are the most popular (Yandex, Baidu, and Naver); and Yahoo is the most popular search engine in Japan and Taiwan. In addition to Google being an exporter of technology and innovation, Google users are also exporters of culture. According to the Oxford Internet Institute,55 U.S. Internet users generate the most content on Google, followed by Germany and Japan. Because the two most populated countries, India and China, are “laggards” in producing user-generated content, Google does appear to be the platform that allows for a googol of webpages. The question is whether capital accumulation of this company can be as indefinite as the number of webpages; if not, then it illustrates the limits of capital.

Conclusion

It is worthwhile to review the The Ten Commandments of Google as stated on the page “Ten things we know to be true”:56

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow. 2. It’s best to do one thing really, really well. 3. Fast is better than slow. 4. Democracy on the web works. 5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer. 6. You can make money without doing evil. 7. There’s always more information out there.

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8. The need for information crosses all borders. 9. You can be serious without a suit.

10. Great just isn’t good enough.

The mottos of Google do not talk about bottom line, profit margins, or market value. An analysis of Google’s business does show that it has used strategies such as diversification and globalization that most corporations do. We may reason that Google’s non-business-oriented mottos are a façade that the company builds to hide its economic motives. However, what may be more likely is that the founders, board members, executives, and workers do truly believe that Google is here for the greater good rather than greater profits, that Google is interested in making the world better rather than making money, and it just accidentally becomes rich. This ideology is perhaps the most dangerous of all of capitalist ideology because it refuses to acknowledge the political economic system to which Google belongs and in which Google thrives.

Notes

1 Global 500, http://fortune.com/global500/ 2 The world’s billionaire, www.forbes.com/billionaire/ 3 Top companies in innovation, responsibility, and more, www.fortune.com/2014/02/27/worlds-most-

admired-companies-top-companies-in-innovation-responsibility-and-more/; wwwfortune.com/2014/02/ 27/worlds-most-admired-companies-top-companies-in-innovation-responsibility-and-more/

4 Google Inc. Announces First Quarter 2015 Results, https://investor.google.com/earnings/2015/ Q1_google_earnings.html

5 Fortune 500, http://fortune.com/fortune500/ 6 Google, Investor Relations, http://investor.google.com/earnings/2013/Q4_google_earnings.html 7 Google, Annual Report 2013 (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2013, 6). 8 Netmarketshare, http://Netmarketshare.com 9 See note 8.

10 Press release “Google to Acquire Motorola Mobility”, August 15, 2011, http://investor.google.com/ releases/2011/0815.html

11 See note 7, 2. 12 Murdoch accuses Google of News “Theft,” http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/02/business/la-fi-news-

google2–2009dec02 13 Google, Annual Report 2012 (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2012, 14). 14 See notes 7, 15. 15 For updates, interested readers can consult www.google.com/intl/en/options/ for the latest. 16 Derek Thompson, “A World without Work,” Atlantic Monthly (July/August 2015), 53. 17 Google glasses are $1,500—-and you can’t have them, http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/27/

technology/google-glasses/ 18 Nasdaq, www.nasdaq.com/symbol/goog/ownership-summary 19 Barack Obama (D), www.opensecrets.org/pres08/contrib.php?cid=N00009638 20 A decade in Google lobbying, http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/a-decade-in-google-lobbying-1713/ 21 Google spent record cash lobbying Congress in 2014—rep, www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/22/

tech_firms_lobbying_washington_2014/ 22 Google’s New Digs in DC Opens to Senators, Dogs, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-16/

google-s-new-digs-in-dc-opens-to-senators-dogs 23 Issues 2014, http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/a-decade-in-google-lobbying-1713/; also, consult Open

Secrets.org for full details. 24 Ken Auletta, Googled: The End of the World as We Know It (New York: Penguin, 2009); David Vise and

Mark Malseed, The Google Story (New York: Delta, 2006). 25 See note 13, i. 26 See note 13, ii. 27 Google, Annual Report 2010 (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2010, ii). 28 See note 27, vi. 29 See note 13, vi. 30 Google, Annual Report 2009 (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2009, ii). 31 See note 27, vi.

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32 See note 13, v. 33 See note 30, iv. 34 See note 27. 35 See note 27, v. 36 Google, Annual Report 2011 (Mountain View, CA: Google, 2011, v). 37 See note 30 viii. 38 See note 13, vii. 39 See note 13, x. 40 See note 13, xi. 41 See note 13, xiii. 42 See note 13, xii. 43 See Alexander Halavais, Search Engine Society (Cambridge: Polity, 2009); Siva Vaidhyanathan, The

Googlization of Everything (And Why We Should Worry) (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2011). 44 Konrad Becker and Felix Stalder, eds., Deep Search: The Politics of Search Beyond Google (Innsbruck, Austria:

StudienVerlag, 2009); Halavais, Vaidhyanathan. 145 Vaidhyanathan, 139. 46 Google and the World Brain, Directed by Ben Lewis (Barcelona: Polar Stars Films, 2013), DVD. 47 Micky Lee, “Google Ads and the Blindspot Debate,” Media, Culture, and Society 33, no. 3 (2011): 433–448. 48 Christian Fuchs, “A Contribution to the Critique of the Political Economy of Google,” Fast Capitalism

8, no. 1 (2011), www.uta.edu/huma/agger/fastcapitalism/8_1/fuchs8_1.html, accessed December 10, 2014; Christian Fuchs, “Google Capitalism,” Triple C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 10, no. 1 (2012): 42–48, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/304, accessed December 10, 2014; Christian Fuchs and Dwayne Winseck, “Critical Media and Communication Studies Today: A Conversation,” Triple C: Cognition, Communication, Co-operation 9, no. 2 (2011): 247–271, www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/ article/view/270, accessed December 10, 2014.

49 Fuchs 2012. 50 Due to the nature of this book chapter, we will not delve deep in the question of prosumers and

affective/subjective labor; interested readers may consult Micky Lee, “From Googol to Guge: The Political Economy of a Search Engine,” in The Audience Commodity in a Digital Era: Revisiting a Critical Theory of Commercial Media, eds. Lee J. McGuigan and Vincent Manzerolle (New York: Peter Lang, 175–191).

51 Christian Fuchs, “Theorising and Analysing Digital Labour: From Global Value Chains to Modes of Production,” The Political Economy of Communication 2, no. 1 (2013): 3–27, www.polecom.org/index.php/ polecom/article/view/19, accessed December 10, 2014.

52 Marissa Mayer, who just banned working from home, paid to have a nursery built at her office. Business Insider, www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-who-just-banned-working-from-home-paid-to-have- a-nursery-built-at-her-office-2013-2#ixzz3en4xgip;153; see note 24.

54 According to the site Digital Marketing Ramblings, http://expandedramblings.com/ 55 Information graphics at the Oxford Internet Institute, http://geography.oii.ox.ac.uk/?page=home 56 The things we know to be true, Google Company, www.google.com/about/company/philosophy/

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