The emergence of search engines in the 90s Internet boom was of high importance in commercializing the Internet. Before Google and Yahoo, users could only access websites through following the links on sites and it was simply luck to find something that your were specifically looking for.
This documentary is the second part of “The True Story of the Internet” and details the development of the search engines in particular Google and yahoo.
There were two main issues that arose from this documentary. Firstly it talked about the problems Internet companies have with making money. Second and finally it talked about the privacy implications that search engines have.
After witnessing the emergence of companies like Yahoo and Excite exploit the integrity of their search engines by simply showing advertising and smut Google wanted to set themselves apart. To be more user friendly they listed sites not by advertising but instead by calculating the most popular sites in relation to the key words searched by the user. This made the engine highly popular and investors soon flocked but it offered no key to making money. The founders did not want to compromise the engine and turn off users so they changed the way advertising was used. Allegedly Google stole the idea (but modified it) of having the advertising match or be in relation to the key words searched while still listing in the method of popularity that Google was known for.
The second issue discussed in the documentary was the privacy associated with recording people’s searches to generate data to know where to place ads. This is still a prevalent issue of the internet today where advertising matching your past searches follows you through different sites. Just this week in the news Google and Yahoo are joining in advertising deals to collaborate with this technology.
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