Can you live without Google?

Eight out of ten people prefer Google but the power of the website is under threat from rival search engines and firms that manipulate its results

In the space of a single decade, internet search has changed the way we look at the world beyond recognition. Google has become our binoculars and our window on to the net.

With that blinking cursor on our internet search box only a button away and ever ready to unleash a geyser of electronic information, no longer do we have to go into any encounter wholly unprepared. Sometimes we rely on it too much.

A survey of 100 American business recruiters in 2006 revealed that four-fifths of them now resort to search engines when hiring new staff. More than a third admitted that they had rejected a candidate on the basis of unverified information that they found on the net.

While search is good, then, it is far from perfect. As I was writing this article, I googled three people. First there was Giulia Ricci, a promising young artist who I was to meet for coffee later in the day; then I typed in Matthew Taylor, the former think-tanker and director of the RSA, because I wanted to read his blog.

Continues @http://technology.timesonline.co.uk

Related articles by Zemanta

• Google Unfazed By 3 Government Inquiries: “It Comes With The Territory” (huffingtonpost.com)
• Google polishes competition charm offensive (news.cnet.com)
• Bing ‘better’ than Google for advertisers (theregister.co.uk)