Will the Federal government regulate Google’s search algorithm? – Computerworld Blogs.

Google is facing calls for anti-privacy and anti-trust regulation on both sides of the Atlantic. And now there’s talk about something much more radical: having the U.S. government monitor Google’s “secret sauce,” its search algorithm. This would be an unprecedented regulation of technology.

Google is facing a variety of potential investigations, including in the U.S. and Europe because thecompany’s Street View vehicles gathered people’s private communications on their home WiFi networks. Even before that,European countries were calling for investigating Google’s privacy policies.

In the U.S. there have been rumbling from Washington about potential anti-trust investigations of Google. ANew York Times article summarizes the various anti-trust issues that Google faces. It quotes Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia University and the author of a forthcoming book on technology monopolies, “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” as saying about the federal government looking at Google and anti-trust actions:

“They are not just on the radar screen. They are the at the center of it. If you are in the federal government and are interested in antitrust, you are looking at Google.”

Continues @http://blogs.computerworld.com

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