Is Google Too Powerful?

I recently read an article in BusinessWeek that posed this now-common question: Is Google too powerful? There seems to be a growing fear in the online community that Google is too big, too influential, too knowledgeable, too everything. Their market value is a staggering $144 billion, and they’re aggressively pushing their way into other markets, openly seeking to dominate them the same way they dominate search. The fear is that Google will have too much control and too little competition.

In general, however, typical Internet users appear to be rather indifferent about Google’s size and ambition. This is probably because most people use Google as a tool - and who wouldn’t be pleased with a tool that, because of its great power and reach, provides the most relevant search results? Google’s rivals, on the other hand, see the issue from an entirely different perspective. In their eyes, Google is more of a looming threat to fair market competition than a useful tool. Even Microsoft, ironic as it may seem, has expressed concern about Google’s dominance.

So what do you think? Is Google becoming too powerful for its own good? Will its rapid growth and expansion into other industries create more fear than loyalty in the online community?