GOOG: Insider Information with Sizzle

Robert Epstein, a credentialed psychologist, is publishing research about the potential threat of Google manipulating elections.WaPo's What If Google Were Evil?

This story line is old hat:  every time a high growth company dominates a market segment with a compelling product, we are faced with market concentration issues:  Standard Oil, AT&T,  IBM, and Microsoft. 

Despite Epstein’s puerile motives in going after Google, he raises a plausible question.  Happily, there are sensible answers that preclude the need for regulation. 

It is sensible with rapid technodrift to be alert to vulnerabilities and to get that potential vulnerability into public awareness.  I think Obama’s recent statement about the need for discourse on standards for cyber security for public companies is a rational example of being alert but not reactive. 

Google publishes an annual video slideshow highlighting the biggest search queries of the year.  They offer public service information exchange in times of local crisis.  The point is that their power has much less to do with manipulating elections than it does with access to real time unfiltered market sentiments and wants.  The macro knowledge that they and their e-commerce brethren have is potently able to forecast attractive market opportunities.  It represents a paradox:  aggregated anonymous personal information is essentially “freely available” inside information of the finest kind. 

In five years, it will be interesting  to see Google’s patrimony in spin-offs and alumni enterprises.