Worried About the Googlenet

Yesterday, I tweeted “welcome to the googlenet” and was asked to explain what I meant by that.  My tweet was about the announcement of Google DNS.  With Google DNS, you can now run pretty much entirely on a Google stack.  You fire up Chrome OS (or maybe just the Chrome browser), point DNS to Google, get your content from Google (e.g., music integrated into search results or driving directions), work with Google apps and other applications run of Google servers via Google AppEngine, and so forth.  Potentially, even doing so with new Google developed protocols.  This is a totally vertically integrated single source solution to the Internet.

Now in theory, at no point are you actually boxed in and everything is supposed to be open and standards compliant.  But the temptation to cross the line and give Google owned properties an unfair leg up and start pushing aside rivals and startups is huge.  It will take so little to go from “creating the best possible Internet experience” to “creating the best possible Google experience.” The company itself is publicly traded and a lot of employees wealth correlates directly to the price of Google stock.  On the margin, I believe that drives behavior more than any corporate commitment to not be evil.

Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that anyone at Google is actively setting out to take over and control the web.  I am, however, worried that the cumulative effect of all the initiatives, combined with economic incentives for decision makers, amounts to an important threat to the open Web.