For those of you who were too young to remember what the web was like before Google; it was a very frustrating place to navigate. Search engines were crap. Many searches would take you to link sites rather than what you were actually looking for and even searching specifically for the name of a website would often yield unwanted results, often pornographic.

So when the Google search engine appeared online it was an absolute revelation

It was brilliant in it's simplicity. Now when you searched for something you got exactly what you wanted, even if you spelt it incorrectly or used vague terms like: "Fruit trees that grow in the UK". It seems so silly now, but back then it was revolutionary, almost magical that this little box where you enter text seemed to have an uncanny ability to find just what you wanted. It was no surprise to anyone who used it that this little company would go on to be one of the most-valuable and successful corporations ever.

Early idealism

Of course, this was pre-9/11 and the massive surveillance state. Back then the idea that Google and other large tech firms would be providing ways for governments to monitor every aspect of their citizen's lives would have seemed absurd. Google started off with good intentions. They were going to be a different, more-conscientious and kind corporation. They adopted the unofficial motto: "Don't be evil". Finally the nerds had taken over, and they weren't going to abuse that power.

"Don't be evil" became "Do the right thing"

Presumably because to modern Google; doing the right thing may mean being evil on occasion. Evil little acts done for the greater good, like allowing the NSA to backdoor Gmail to stop terrorism. Doing the right thing might entail building a version of Google for China to stop their citizens seeing things the government doesn't want them to. Lines were blurred and those idealistic geeks grew up and like many other large corporations, operating in grey areas became a part of their daily lives. If we don't do it Microsoft will, we have shareholders to think about.

Somewhere along the line, to "google" became a verb

It was at that point when Google's concentration of power became too large, now they can shape the world by hiding unfavourable search results linked to prominent people, they can influence elections and bring down governments. And they have access to more sensitive data than any company in history.

Google's recent 2.4 billion Euro fine

This has made headlines, but media have talked very little about how Google earned this punishment. I loathe the bureaucratic monster that is the EU, but this seems to have been one of the rare occasions when they actually did some good for humanity.

Google was caught hiding it's competitors in the search results of product searches, even when their competitors yield more-relevant and cheaper results.

Given the long list of times the company has acted contrary to their early motto, this may seem minor in comparison but it's yet another example of: "doing the right thing". The right thing for Google, not us.

Google is no longer the idealistic young nerds

They are a huge supranational corporation with fingers in every pie. They have a huge concentration of power, far too much power to keep them honest and they've demonstrated that YOU do not come first.

Rather than hoping technocrats in the EU will reign them in, it's perhaps a better idea to seek out alternatives and help them grow, even if you use them alongside Google. Don't let the monster keep growing without competition, they've shown they don't deserve it.