Scenario 2: Google suffers from law restrictions and privacy issues

2006 - Chinese government

Google launches several new online applications such as GPay (the new payment method) in Beta phase and several applications that are currently being tested will loose their Beta status. Gmail will be launched officially at the end of 2006 and the use of invitations will disappear. Google offers almost all their web services for free. This results in a massive number of users that don’t read the terms of the web services and blindly agree with them. In the terms Google states that they collect information about the user for marketing goals.

Google will invest more and more to be able to launch the Chinese version of Google with as less censorship as possible. The Chinese government doesn’t agree on this censored version of Google. Google keeps trying to bend the rules of the restrictions that were determined by the government. The Chinese government aproaches Google with a deal. This deal allows Google to expand their search engine in China as long as al the search and user data is available for the government. Google agrees on this and launches there search engine officially at the end of 2006.

2007 - Other governments

After the launch of the Chinese version of Google, a lot of people complain about the privacy issue. Because the media don't let Google go free, more governments start looking at Google more carefully. Specialists are hired by governments all around the world to determine the risk of Google without censorship and, even more important, the privacy issues of the users. Google ignores the debating governments and continue to introduce new services to the public. Almost every new service collects a different kind of user data which is all stored by Google in the users profile.

The concerned countries debate more about this delicate subject and decide to start an central investigation. Because most worried countries are located within the European Union, the union headquarters decide to lead the investigation. The investigation starts at the end of 2007.

2008 - Restrictions & Dropping stocks

Within a couple of month the results of the investigation show that Google collects to much private information and the European Union decides in June that Google isn’t allowed anymore to save information about their users and their internet behaviour. The European Union determines clear restrictions about the data that may be saved. A lot of data has to be saved but Google isn’t allowed to sell this data to customers/advertisers. This data is only saved for national security reasons.

Google starts a trial and meets the European Union in court in August. Google looses the case and prepares for the next steps. At the same time Google gets sued in the United States for the same reason as in Europe.

Directly after loosing the European Union case and the start of the case in the United States, the stocks of Google drop rapidly to the lowest value since the introduction of the stock in 2004.

2009 - Cancellation of services

Due to the strict limitations in Europe, Google’s revenue is decreasing rapidly. Both the lawsuits in Europe and the United States costs enormous amounts of money. Google isn’t able to sell customized advertising anymore which results in a reduced number of advertisements. During 2009 less money is available for ‘side-projects’ and Google is forced to pull the plug out of the most costing projects. At the end of the year Google has cancelled their Gmail and Gpay services.

Other companies don’t have to deal with the privacy issues as much as Google. Microsoft learned from the past and was very careful with there new operating system. By spending less time and money in court, Microsoft was able to focus on the biggest market available; ‘home entertainment’.

Microsoft had experience with the massive gaming industry and noticed on time that the focus went to home entertainment in it’s biggest form. Microsoft joint forces with Akamai and several other companies in creating the worlds biggest home entertainment environment. Akamai provided the facilities to store all kinds of movie’s, TV-shows and other media material.

2010 - So far the 'Google God'

Google is forces to lay off people in several departments and reorganized dramatically. During this year Google dropped all of their activities with the exception of their core-business; the search engine. Of course Google improved the search algorithms, the types of documents that were searched and much more. Searching was still very important on the internet and Google was still the leader in that area.

Microsoft decided to give up their MSN search at the end of the year and adapted Google search in their portal. Google also provided the search capabilities for the video-on-demand business that Microsoft participated in. However, Google lost that battle. Google is back where they were in the beginning and there is no speaking of a ‘Google God’.