Google's future and how it shapes ours

As Google celebrates its 10th birthday, The Times talked with Internet experts about what the company should do over the next decade. Condensed interviews follow. For the full text visit latimes.com/technology.

Michael Arrington

Editor and founder of

TechCrunch

Google continues to fight a multifront war. They dominate search and search marketing, which is where most online advertising dollars are spent today. That gives them a huge war chest to explore other areas for both defensive and offensive purposes -- Google Docs and Google Apps to try to disrupt Microsoft Office revenue and further erode the need for Windows, for example.

In search, Google needs to continue to dominate text but also explore rich-media search. Today, no one can actually search inside of a picture, video or sound file to see what's in there.

Finally, social networking is the new search. Everyone's doing it but no one can monetize it effectively yet.

Kevin Bankston

Senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation

In the next decade, Google will continue to be the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of digital free speech and privacy. On the one hand, Google's innovative tools for finding and publishing online content have been and will continue to be a boon to the Internet's billions of users, fostering free speech and open access to information on an unprecedented scale. On the other hand, Google will also continue to be the primary innovator when it comes to finding more powerful and invasive ways of tracking and monetizing Internet users' private online activities.

Google's credo is "Don't be evil," yet it's building the biggest horde of sensitive Internet usage data this side of the National Security Agency. In the next decade, Google needs to prove that its commitment to privacy is more than just talk, not only in the design of its products but in its lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C.

Google is the undisputed 800-pound gorilla of the Internet tech sector, and it should start throwing that weight around on Capitol Hill by demanding on behalf of its users an update to this country's woefully out-of-date electronic privacy laws.

John Battelle

Founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing and author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture"