From Infoworld: Study: Google users wealthier, more Net savvy
U.S. residents who prefer Google Inc.’s search engine tend to be richer and have more Internet experience than those who primarily use competing search services from Microsoft Corp., Yahoo Inc. and America Online Inc., a new study has found.
The longer people have been using the Internet, the more likely it is that Google will be their search engine of choice, according to a survey of 1,000 U.S. Internet users conducted by investment banking and research firm S.G. Cowen & Co. LLC.
Moreover, people whose primary search engine is Google are more likely to have household incomes above US$60,000 than people who use competing search engines, according to the survey, whose results S.G. Cowen published in a report Monday.
Not only is Google an authority, but Google is recognized as an authority by the most competent among us.
1,000 people is an extremely small sampling size and if “competent” = rich then you’re a more vile Capitalist than me. All in fun (because I have to tell you that these days) but I wouldn’t dispute these conclusions I’d just like a larger sampling size with more data and demographic breakdown.
What? 1000 people is standard for just about any poll numbers you see about anything.
1000 is standard for an opinion poll, but a standard poll is not a good way to address this kind of question.
I’m also concerned that you call Google and “authority.” Google has the most useful engine at present, but increased reliance on google is giving increasing power to a search engine that may or may not continue to give you the truly useful results. If something useful falls off google, it effectively falls off the internet. That should alarm the most “competent” internet users, no?
But Google isn’t evil, it says so right in their mission statement!
Serious answer: Google is an authority by any measure. It is appealed to for information by competent people, those appeals are justified (ie, Google does what its supposed to do), and we recognize that such appeals are justified. Appeals to Google hold the same epistemic status as any other appeal to authority.
And just like any authority, that power can be abused. And it is something that we should be (and are) conscious of. The trick, though, is that trusting Google doesn’t commit me to blind faith in a corporation. My faith here is in the market: Google has way too much at stake to ruin its image by corrupting search results. And especially because its users are more competent generally, it has the smallest wiggle-room for error. If there is a scandal, we’ll know about it, and soon.
Ok, that’s a good answer.