Google, officially the trademarked name of a company, has become so common a word that to google is now a verb included in the Oxford English Dictionary. To google is to search for information on the Internet (using the Google search engine). Google the company is a multinational company based in the United States that specializes in Internet-related services and products, including online advertising, cloud computing, software, and [Page 1646]hardware. Google’s stated mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

Founded in 1996 in response to the absence in the market of a good, consistent Internet search engine, Google has evolved into a mammoth enterprise whose decisions and activities reach into the daily lives of individuals around the world. Concerns ...