Sergey Brin (Photo: James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media, Inc)
The Guardian today launches a week-long investigation into internet freedom. Both print and online dedicate sections titled ‘Battle for the internet’ to an examination into the struggle for control of the online world.
The series begins today with an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Brin expressed deep concern over the future of innovation and web freedom, “I am more worried than I have been in the past”. On the question of Google’s partial pullout from China in 2010 following concerns over censorship and web attacks, Brin said his assumption that China could not effectively restrict the internet for long has been proven wrong. “I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle.”
Brin’s fears centre on media control in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but he also expressed concern over the unprecedented rise of “restrictive” sites, such as Facebook, which are able to police which software is released and control access to their users. Brin says that the policies adopted by platforms like Facebook are contrary to the ethos and aims of Google, including his intention to “protect data” as much as possible from governments. “The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.”
Google co-founder fears decline in internet freedom
Sergey Brin (Photo: James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media, Inc)
The series begins today with an interview with Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Brin expressed deep concern over the future of innovation and web freedom, “I am more worried than I have been in the past”. On the question of Google’s partial pullout from China in 2010 following concerns over censorship and web attacks, Brin said his assumption that China could not effectively restrict the internet for long has been proven wrong. “I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle.”
Brin’s fears centre on media control in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, but he also expressed concern over the unprecedented rise of “restrictive” sites, such as Facebook, which are able to police which software is released and control access to their users. Brin says that the policies adopted by platforms like Facebook are contrary to the ethos and aims of Google, including his intention to “protect data” as much as possible from governments. “The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation.”