Scaling Google's peaks
Published: 11 May 2004 15:00 BST
In the long run, what do you think will be more interesting: one gigantic search space, or lots of little ones partitioned off from one another -- different databases for this Web site or that company's email archive?
From a user's point of view, you want one place you can go to do the search. I do not necessarily have a technical preference. The important thing for me is that it be as easy for the users to get the information that they want and, to me, that means they just have to only go to one place, and that one place should be smart enough to figure out, out of the zillions of different types of information sources in the world, which ones have the right results for you.
What are your ideas on the need for privacy, with search histories, registration data, email documents in one place?
Well, we definitely respect the fact that the people who create the information and who own the information have the rights to decide how that information should be viewed. We give all sorts of controls to let people control very finely how their information is made available through Google. That is going to be our policy.
Do Google's algorithms scale? And if the amount of data in your database doubles, for example, does it take twice as many computers to return a search result?
Our algorithms do scale, and if, you know, the size of the Web doubles, and the machines double, then we are keeping pace.
Does it break it at some point? Does it work with arbitrarily large data sets?
As far as I know, it works with arbitrarily large data sets. If there is a constraint, we have not run into it yet.
Do you think advanced search features should be built into the operating system, and does that allow Microsoft to create a tool that is far better tuned to the individual? And if so, would Google want access to the information Microsoft collects?
I remember when the whole Microsoft-Netscape debate happened several years ago, and there were all these talks about what should and should not be in the operating system. It all kind of floundered on the definition of what an operating system is.
At some point, it's not an interesting question to me. [What interests] me is that it be as easy as possible for people to get the information they need.
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