The Google Dilemma

James Grimmelmann, New York Law School

Abstract

Web search is critical to our ability to use the Internet. Whoever controls search engines has enormous influence on all of us; whoever controls the search engines, perhaps, controls the Internet itself. This short essay (based on talks given in January and April 2008) uses the stories of five famous search queries to illustrate the conflicts over search and the enormous power Google wields in choosing whose voices are heard on the Internet.