Cesspit Google has to clean up its act

SUPPORTERS of the so-called free internet — i.e. one where you can watch people having their heads cut off by lunatics or enjoy unfettered access to child pornography — are fond of saying the worldwide web is like a busy road: just learn to navigate it and you’ll be fine.

I have some sympathy for that view. The internet is here to stay and we all need to learn to find our way safely around it.

That said, it’s one thing to get used to living next to a busy road, quite another to find a giant cesspit opening up in your back garden.

This, in effect, is what Google has done to us all by allowing mainstream adverts from companies such as Marks & Spencer, L’Oreal and even the Government to appear in YouTube videos promoting anti-Semitism and terrorism.

Google’s Europe boss Matt Brittin has apologised, but his words are meaningless. The real problem is that Google refuses to admit that it is a media organisation, preferring instead to style itself as a technology company and, therefore, free to abrogate responsibility for all the content it disseminates.

This is patent nonsense. Google is one giant media monopoly.

The fact that it is not already subject to the same rules (and tax burdens) as any other is one of the greatest scandals of our time.