The main reason the government may have to give such an importance to total Internet access to its citizens is move make the move to all their services online, both to cut costs and to make them more efficient. According to the Finland’s communication minister Suvi Linden (as reported by the BBC),the Internet penetration is around 96%, much higher than the UK’s and the US’s which are below the 80% mark.

“We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment.

“Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access”

The move to more internet-based services from the public sectors is already underway in most OECD countries, and several have had a similar approach to internet access. In the UK, for example, the government has agreed to give a minimum of 2MB/s broadband access to the wole population, but it is a commitment rather than a legally binding law. In Finland, the welfare check will now include Internet fees, so that the lower-income portion of the population will be able to afford it. Apart from a probable slight increase in taxation, this will not affect most Finns and they already have Internet access.

Finland is one of the countries with the best broadband availability already. It is third worldwide in average broadband speed (behind Japan and South Korea, Asia’s two internet speed junkies) and the fifth country regarding to broadband penetration. Broadband is cheaper than most places too (again, only behind Japan and South Korea) which makes the new law affordable.

The reaction from the “international community” is mixed nonetheless. Some call upon their libertarian side, surprised that anyone could even think of Internet access as a right rather than a commodity. Others call Finland forward thinking, the first country to take act upon the technological advancements of our time. The problem is that Internet access here becomes more of an obligation than a right, and though you don’t pay for it if you’re of the needy, you may not be able to refuse to be contacted through electonical means in the near future. On the other hand, why should the government still have to rely on costly solutions like paperwork and snailmail in this day and age?

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The ambition of Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founders, is reflected in their mission statement: “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” By simply making useful information available in 0.2 seconds with a single click, Google put the final nail in Yahoo’s coffin. However, Google’s mandate stretch far beyond simply becoming the most powerful and popular search engine in history. Access to information was the ultimate goal and, in order to reach this goal, Google has slowly infiltrated itself into our daily lives: from how we think, interact and manage information to media, education and telecommunication industries.

One of the first major blows Google struck was against the traditional medias. In 2001, Google unveiled Google News, a news aggregator which suddenly made the traditional media irrelevant. As newspaper sales went into free-fall, Google ruthlessly moved on to further industries. Next in line, in 2004, Google launched two major products: Gmail and Google Books. Though Gmail still faces competition from Microsoft and Yahoo among others, Google Books has slowly ushered in a new age of e-books. Amazon has worked hard to try and maintain its place in book sales with the release of Kindle and even Apple has entered the industry with the revelation of the iPad and more specifically the iBook application. The media industry took a further blow when Google revealed their plan to buy Youtube. This left Hollywood and the RIAA furious as Google did not actively take down copyrighted content.

More recently, Google has taken on the telecommunication industry. With the release of Google Voice and the Android, everything from traditional telecommunications to Skype were in danger. Also, with the release of Google Chrome, even Microsoft is feeling threatened, with Mac OSX and Google Chrome both encroaching on a market that once was firmly and decisively in Microsoft’s hands.

However, as of now, none of these products were able to provide a decisive blow to competing companies. Other industries reacted furiously to Google’s attempts at changing the market, with lawsuits being filed and deals being cut. Throughout all this, Google has remained relatively naive. As stated over and over again by Brin and Page, Google is not looking to take over the world, simply to organize it.

Of course, Google has its faults, but slowly, they are starting to redress themselves. What has long been a controversial struggle over censorship in China recently came to a head with Google refusing to continue to censor results. Some claim Google to even be evil, and perhaps with just cause. A company that is infiltrating every facet of our lives deserves some worry. A Google hegemony, no matter how benevolent, is a realistic fear. Google’s slogan of “do no evil” comes to mind as somewhat hypocritical. However, it is important to remember that there is still a choice in much of what Google offers. The problem is that Google is the best at what they do. In their mind, design is no longer responding to a consumer request, but rather understanding, anticipating and then serving our requests.

A decade of domination has come and gone, and Google are still going on strong. Google has without a doubt changed modern day economics and the way people perceive information and the Internet. No longer is business restricted to those who produce goods, but now includes those who organize these goods. Though it has been a decade of Google, the end does not seem in sight. If anything, Google is just expanding and expanding. Google may be hatching some evil plan to take over the world through manipulation, but, more realistically, they are just the best at what they do. Let the Google era run its course.

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The video below is the result of quick “research” (i.e. some Google guys asking questions in Times Square, New York) on what people thought a “browser” was. The results are scary. For those who are not courageous enough to watch it, this video basically proves that most people have no idea what a browser is, and assimilate the term to the concept of search engine.

The problem is that people are not aware of what software they are using. If they bump into limitations from using that software, they’ll think their at the edge of all possible technology and not that the particular software they are using is limited. One out of ten people is using Internet Explorer 6. They are not using it because they chose it but rather because they have no idea that Internet Explorer is a software program that can be replaced. You might argue that there’s no bad to that, but it is clear that people using IE 6 have a lower web experience than those with IE 8, FF3, etc. Of course Google is worried because their whole business is on the web: a bad web experience for 10% of the Internet’s users ultimately means 10% of users that would have a limited experience with their products.

Imagine what people would answer if they were asked what OS they used? Would they know there were alternatives? Microsoft has long taken advantage of this situation by pushing hardware brands to tie their operating system to the PCs. Practically nobody revolted against that situation because they did not have the knowledge to study the alternatives. You might say that the situation has changed because Apple is making a lot of noise, but according to the numbers I’ve seen, Firefox is much more used than Mac OS. That means that if more than 10% of users are not able to see the advantage to switching to a new browser from IE6, these same users will not even think of changing the whole OS. If 90% of users do not know what an OS is (and it’s probably harder to understand what an OS is than what a browser is), who can break the Microsoft monopoly.

On a more cheerful note, Apple’s advertisement serves the OS market as a whole as it opens consumers eyes and consequently pushes it towards more innovation. Now I’m asking myself a question: will the browser chooser option on Windows 7 (in Europe only) open people’s eyes about choice? The “ballot screen” that Microsoft will have to provide their new costomers with a new insight on browser competition, even if I don’t believe a larger share of customers will actually will care. This video just made me realize why Microsoft was fighting the EC so much.

Conclusion? I’d say computer illiteracy is good for Microsoft and any information is dangerous for their dominance. If people don’t know what a browser is, they won’t feel the need to change. The same thing goes for the OS.

If you’re not sure yourself what a web browser is, here’s a video that explains it is (very) simple terms:

You might want to check whatbrowser.org (from which this video comes from), a web site made by “some folks at Google”, that is non partisan (i.e. not pushing Google Chrome down your throat), and that’s simple to understand for non-tech-savvy users. I think I’ll send the address to my clueless friends. You should do the same.

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