On Thursday 18 March in central London, spiked will host an important live debate asking: ‘Has Google got too big for its boots?’

Google started life as a search engine, but it has now become so much more than that: it’s an economic powerhouse and even a political player which wields much influence in both the online and offline worlds. With its growing control over how material on the web is presented and accessed, and its influence over online advertising and its move into the world of online estate agencies, Google is no longer simply a gateway to the web – it is a major player in how the web works.  

Has Google become too domineering? Small businesses complain that they are being elbowed aside by Google’s intervention in their traditional areas of business, and argue that in order to advertise effectively on the web you have no choice but to play ball with Google. Privacy activists are concerned about Google’s logging of our surfing and searching habits and the way in which its new social-networking initiative – Buzz – appears to make our personal info available to various different people. And with the increasing use of YouTube as part of electoral campaigns, including the forthcoming UK General Election, Google can be said to have significant political clout too. However, some welcome these developments, and even call on Google to wield its power more explicitly – for example, by pulling out of China as a way of putting pressure on the Chinese regime to change. 

When Google is called upon not only to provide search results but also to provide political results and even to change the world, isn’t it clear that it has grown too big? Is it taking over too many areas of the internet and web-based business, and harming web-users’ right to privacy online? Or should we welcome the growth of a corporation that is shaping and developing such a naturally unwieldy space as the internet? What’s wrong with one organisation helping to make the internet a more streamlined and easily accessible place? Join us for this important debate.

Speakers include:

Andrew Orlowski executive editor of The Register
Tom Hyde strategy director, Profero
David Crow associate editor, City AM
Dr Damian Tambini associate fellow of the IPPR
Becket McGrath competition lawyer

chair:        
Helene Guldberg, managing editor, spiked