Stephen E. Arnold, Google 2.0: the Calculating Predator (Infonortics UK, 2007)

Robert David Steele, as posted to http://www.oss.net/GOOGLE, 21 September 2007.

REVIEW

Stephen E. Arnold, Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator (Infonortics UK, 2007)

Coming on the heels of his first intensive look, The Google Legacy: How Google’s Internet Search Is Transforming Application Software (Infonortics Ltd., 2005), Stephen E. Arnold (www.arnoldit.com/sitemap.html) has published a study, vetted by lawyers and investment firms, which is shocking.

Google has become a predatory supra-national entity that few competitors understand. The implications are important because Google has become an entity seemingly immune to certain issues related to privacy and copyright. Its enterprise box, once a Trojan Horse, has become a cog in a much larger network framework with the potential to disrupt the businesses of companies such as IBM, Oracle, and SAP. Google’s invention—described by Google as the PSE or Programmable Search Engine—makes it possible for Web masters and organizations to “instruct” the Google system on what information is used by whom under what circumstances. Needless to say, the PSE would convert today’s Web into a very different type of information construct operated and totally controlled by Google, with minimal public accountability.

This 260-page analysis is one of the finest and most compelling technical studies it has ever been my privilege to review. Although Mr. Arnold writes with the skill of one who knows how to present facts while illuminating pitfalls that leave him immune to legal challenge, the reader will have no difficulty drawing the correct conclusions:

 Google is poised to become the Semantic Web  Google may have technology that brings unparalleled new data manipulation functions but those same functions could be used to create new content and disrupt traditional publishing and commercial database businesses.  Google’s intelligent algorithms can “slice and dice” data, thus creating new information from content provided or produced by others  Google’s present PageRank system is showing signs of age, and Google is working develop a next-generation system. Rather than replace PageRank, the new system will support the programmatic functions and reduce the spoofing techniques of search engine optimization gurus as well as policing click fraud.  Goggle is on the verge of “owning” big data in a totalitarian manner, to include (just announced today) everyone’s medical histories and gnome data, topics regrettably not covered in Mr. Arnold’s analysis  Google is maneuvering to make the cell phone the core device with: o Natural language recognition and voice-to-text / text-to-voice functionality o Automatic, on-the-fly machine translation o Ability to deliver from the cloud to the cell, effectively disrupting established service delivery systems for e-payments and content acquisition and delivery o Perform search without search, or what Google calls in one of its patent applications “I’m feeling doubly lucky.” The idea, reveals Mr. Arnold, is that a wireless device with heart and temperature sensors can recognize a heart attack, for example, and automatically summon emergency services to an afflicted user. (If this sounds like Big Brother, George Orwell would hear the hoof beats.)  Google can, “flip a bit”, says Mr. Arnold and dis-intermediate many traditional publishers. As an aside, Mr. Arnold published a study of this technology in an Outsell report this summer. He told me that he briefed the owners of the Associated Press who perceived that Google was “just a

1 Robert David Steele, as posted to http://www.oss.net/GOOGLE, 21 September 2007.

search engine selling ads.” Mr. Arnold’s study reveals similarly disruptive technical capabilities that can have significant impact on banking, financial, telecommunications, back-office systems and retail industries. Google, is vulnerable at this time. Mr. Arnold identifies lawyers and Google’s own management challenges as the biggest threats to Google. He said, “It’s not that Google is so good. It is that Google’s competitors and would-be competitors are sitting on their hands, allowing Google to do what it wants without real push back.”  Google’s engineering excellence allows it to do more with less. Some basic computer operations run up to 20 times faster on Google’s infrastructure at one-tenth the cost of slower systems operated by competitors. This puts competitors at a cost disadvantage, which makes catching up problematic when finances are tight.

The study, which relies heavily on a unique combination text mining and text analytics with old fashioned HUMINT (Human Intelligence) makes clear that Google is more than search. Mr. Arnold also calls attention to the combination of luck and circumstance that allowed Google to hire key Alta Vista engineers, then “borrow” online advertising methodology from Yahoo. Google, therefore, is, according to Mr. Arnold, a predator and a calculating one at that. Calculating, in Mr. Arnold’s analysis, refers to Google’s solid mathematical base. Google uses math as a strategic weapon. It competitors use applied engineering, a basic difference hitherto not articulated about Google.

The study concludes that Goggle could crash from any of fifteen vulnerabilities, including a Chinese or Indian (I would add Brazilian, Iranian, or Russian) Google-killer.

The author absolves most Google employees, pointing out that the vast majority work in silos and many do not understand the essence of the Googleplex (Mr. Arnold’s term to describe Google’s massive computing infrastructure and brain trust). The “most elite Googlers,” however, do understand the “vision” of Google’s becoming a $100 billion company. And it is the most elite, and the triumvirate especially, who are charting a course very similar to that which ultimately led to the break-up of Standard Oil and of AT&T.

We also know from public reports that Google has been collaborating with the Central Intelligence Agency, and I speculate that they are also in league with the National Security Agency, which was all too quick to do warrant-less telephone interceptions. Mr. Arnold does not cover these topics, but he puts a list of the subjects that are not discussed in depth in this highly technical analysis. He told me, “I wanted to dig into privacy and the telco topics, but after my heart attack in February 2007, I focused on the core inventions in order to get the study done in the event I had more health problems. Some 20-year old whiz kid can use my methodology and dig into these other important areas.”

Just as we have all learned we cannot trust our elected politicians, I believe the time has come to recognize that we cannot trust Google—or any single large entity for that matter. Their persistence in seeking to acquire and internally exploit our search histories and every aspect of our lives including our medical records and gene map, while motivated by the right intentions—wanting to integrate all information in all languages all the time—has crossed the Rubicon.

The study concludes with a table of Google’s vulnerabilities. Mr. Arnold’s table, and his assigned probabilities to each of the weaknesses that he has identified, are shown below without the explicatory text.  Management In-Fighting >75%  Invisible Technical Problems >50%  Legal Action >50%  Public Opinion Turns Against Google >80%

2 Robert David Steele, as posted to http://www.oss.net/GOOGLE, 21 September 2007.

 Advertising Declines >60%  Click Fraud >60%  Losing Key Employees Due to Vesting >20%  Giving in to one of the Seven Deadly Sins >50%  The Internet collapses >10%  Management Get Mental Arterioclosis/Hubris >50%  China or India Builds a Google-Killer >50%

The author, for reasons unknown to me, did not posit one additional vulnerability that I have become aware of between my deep respect for CISCO Application Oriented Network (AON), Grub, the open source distributed search crawler platform, free IBM office suite of tools, and localized networks using solar-powered wireless nodes for “the last mile.” If CISCO AON can offer a permanent router-server box that is recyclable, includes storage, and allows individuals to apply rules for access and monitoring, then “everything open” including Open Money, becomes possible. I rate this possibility at >80%.

Mr. Arnold is neutral on all things Google. He is focused almost exclusively on Google’s inventions and what those inventions make possible. Readers looking for the dark side of Google will have to look elsewhere. He told me that he is working on a third Google study tentatively called “Google’s Strategy of Disruption”. I hope he looks at the “dark side” of Google without getting too far from the technical analytics.

However, I personally have resolved that unless Google comes clean with the public, the company is now evil, and it will have no place in my life. I consider Google at this time to be off the tracks and hazardous to all of us. I have advised my family, friends, and colleagues of my conclusions, and posted this review to my primary web page. The short-cut for this review is http://www.oss.net/GOOGLE.

To end on a positive note: Google has the power to change, but suffers from the same hubris that led the US Intelligence Community to label my 1988-1992 efforts to get them to focus on the 96 percent of the information they did not have to steal, as “lunatic.” Today, of course, we are on the verge of seamlessly integrating and making available all information in all languages all the time, but unless the Google triumvirate understands that in the age of Open Everything they must give up control in order to gain access and trust, it will not be part of the future as I envision it.

The best outcome for all would be for an alliance of competitors to displace the Google data centers with a new form of router-server that gives every individual CISCO AON capabilities at the point of creation, that respects and embraces Google mathematical prowess for slicing and dicing data, and that places on top of all that a new form of pervasive sense-making and decision-support that can help every individual and organizations cut costs, increase profit, and generally improve the quality of life for all, and most especially for the five billion poor We should be giving away the cell phones, and monetizing only that which is associated with creating the new wealth of networks, wealth of knowledge, revolutionary wealth.

“Do no evil.” Right.

Google 2.0: The Calculating Predator (2007 will be available for purchase at www.infonortics.com (look for the short-cut) on 3 October 2007. The price for a one-time download will be US$640.

The Google Legacy (2005) may be purchased from the same website. The price for a one-time download is US$180 or 145 euros.