Critiquing Google as a Brand - Admission/Application Essay Example

Critiquing Google Larry Page and Sergey Brin, two graduate at Stanford in California, developed Google as a search engine as part of their graduate research project. In 1996 Google was first introduced as a search engine in Stanford University’s internal wed sites. From 1998 it became the complete commercial company. After its foundation it became the largest search engine in the world. Google has been the most important part of everyday life. But Google is often been criticised on several grounds.

This paper tries to critically analyze Google’s relevance in the market and historical significance, and also tries to mark a creative analysis of its brand positioning. Market relevance: Google is criticized in regard to its relevance in the market. Since its inception the company and its brands and products have been dominating the market. Gerald Reischl showed several significant facts and aspects and argued that the company has developed tremendous power by presenting many additional services which are beyond the general functionalities of original search engine.

In this way the company has captured the market for creating monopoly in internet search and computer software markets (Deicke 1). The company is the market leader in search engines. The Google-Yahoo! deal that has been signed in 2008 was criticized by the US Department of Justice regarding the violation of Antitrust law (Cline 43). It has also been argued that Google could not provide effective leadership and vision in the market. The company also holds monopoly in the market for online advertising (Deicke 1).

Historical significance and critiquing Google: The company receives data and information from different people to whom it provides free software applications. This has been the main historical significance of the company. But the company receives information without even asking those people. If someone opens an account in Gmail or Google Groups after providing all the necessary information to the company, then Google can use that information set for any kind of purpose it wants. Hence, there is an issue regarding the privacy of users.

Another related historical aspect was the company’s debate with China’s government regarding the privacy issue. Critics argued that the company has not been independent to restrict efforts of governments to access Google’s data (Deicke 2). Brand positioning and Google: Google has been criticized largely on the basis of its brand positioning strategies and choice of those brands and products. The company has launched various brands and products which have not been successful in creating expected demand and popularity from the market.

The company has been criticized on the ground that the company has launched many products and brands without proper evaluation of long-term impacts of those products or brands. For instance, the company has announced to sell laptops of $100, without even analyzing the potential social impact of it. The Google library project has also been criticized due to the fact that the company did not show any intension to pay to the authors and publishers of those books and articles. But the company has justified these actions saying that it is doing a great job for the entire society.

YouTube has been criticized saying that it is full of stolen components. Piracy has been one of major issues which have been raised against the company. But the company has claimed that all the materials which are shown in the YouTube were copyright materials taken upon request. The company has been gaining a lot of money from advertizing others’ products in YouTube at the cost of others’ revenues (Cline 43). Hence Google Scholar has received criticisms from many critics. In this context the company has been criticized regarding the violation of its own mantra, “Do not be evil” (Cline 43).

Google has launched many products which did not have anything new compared to other similar product s or brands. For example, the company has launched Google Plus in 2011 which is nothing but a copy-paste of Facebook. Similarly Orkut does the same job as Facebook. These products had nothing new in them, but add lots of money in company’s revenue steam. Critics also argue that the company is doing nothing to develop or invent new technologies. Rather they are more concerned about making more effective use of existing technologies and making more advertizing of their and others’ products and brands to earn more revenue (Cline 43-44).

Conclusion: Google has been criticized on several grounds, from its advertizing strategies to piracy and privacy issues. But one fact can never be ignored that the company has launched many interesting products like Google Local or Google Earth which have largely changed people’s life (Cline 44). The company has created new world for consumers, advertisers, students and for almost everyone. Hence, if the company can possibly get out of these criticisms, then it can become one the greatest companies of all time.

References 1. Cline, Mychilo. Virtual Reality: a Catalyst for Social and Economic Change, USA: Mychilo Cline, 2009 2. Deicke, Dennis. “Google Unleashed - The new global power?”, Review of Gerald Reischl, Die Google Falle - Die unkontrollierte Weltmacht im Internet. Ueberreuter, Wien: 2008, n.d., December 29, 2011 from http://networkcultures.org/_uploads/Review_Reischl.pdf