Not long ago Google announced the release of Google Suggest from beta lab testing to mainstream search products and pages. While many are touting this new launch as a great step in the development of Internet search engines my sense is we are now putting Google in a very significant position of power over our Internet experience.

Although this may seem simply to be a “smart tool” for searching relevant sites via Google, an analysis of what is really happening begins to shed light into the potential abuse this development could have in the long run.

The way the search engine works currently is the user types in as many words as necessary to express what they are looking for, and then presses enter for a response to that search request. Google suggest, however, begins providing responses to search terms after just a few characters, essentially “directing” the search process.

The tool works by making suggestions, typically of 2-4 words long, once a searcher begins typing in the first few characters of their search term.  Typing “small bus” for example, may result in a search display in the drop down of terms like “small business marketing” or “small business media”.

The first issue that immediately comes to mind is “who decides what search terms show up in the “recommended” suggestions, and in what order?  If I own a company called “Small Business Media” I would love to have my site come up first as a suggestion for typing “small bus” into the search bar.

With search terms being shorted to 2 or 4 word long suggestions, the number of search terms for PPC advertisements is also reduced, essentially raising the marketability of the terms chosen by Google themselves for inclusion in the “suggested” list.

It doesn’t take too long before one begins to realize the magnitude of the problem here. Once search terms are vetted down to 2 or 4 word phrases, those words and phrases now become far more valuable, hence, cost far more money than they did before.

What happens next is that not only will businesses be expected to pay for search “usage” (how many times a particular word or phrase is typed into search engines) but also suggestion search order (who comes up first in the order of suggestions Google makes once a searcher starts typing their key words).

Currently the order a page shows up on search engine results is based on a complex compilation of page rank, relevancy, and several dozen factors having to do with whether the page is relevant to the search terms or not. When you eliminate the number of search choices available (or reduce them by a very large percentage as this tool certainly will do) you raise the value of your “product” and the market (businesses marketing their services and products) pay more.

One might argue here that as long as the user is provided the results they need or want, then the seller should have to pay for whatever the market will support but it raises the question of whether or not that should include a market where the search provider (Google) has an unfair advantage over the market (searcher results) to unnaturally raise the market price of their own products and services through filtering of search results.

Certainly time will tell how these developments unfold. It is very likely that searchers may reject the “suggestion” model and opt instead to have the ability to type whatever search terms they feel will bring the results they want, and not what a computer decides after a few key strokes.

Either way, it brings up some interesting challenges that will need to be addressed as digital information, and access to it, becomes more valuable commodities in the future. It seems it may become necessary in the future to treat search engines as utiltiy companies; in essense they provide semi-monopolized services that have a huge impact on overall economic developments. This argument may not hold much water today, but mark my words, it will become a huge issue in the not-too-distant future.