InfoWorld: Google archive exceeds 6 billion Internet items

How does this affect Preble?

I was talking to a friend of mine earlier this evening and the discussion turned to newspapers and the Internet. Years ago a politician once said, "Never get in a fight with someone who buys printers ink by the barrel." Back then news was a fleeting thing, Yesterdays news was used to wrap today's fish and quickly became forgotten. With the Internet all that's changed. Yesterdays news is just one click away, for that matter last years or even years before that news are also just one click away. That makes a huge difference because anything a politician says or even something a business does never goes away. Flying J is a good example of that. Even though the Flying J information here on the site is years old, it is still used by people across the country who are fighting a Flying J in their neighborhood. It is also said that negative press is not on a par with positive press. That means that anything negative written about somebody or some business stays around forever and the party is continuously asked to answer for it. That is a good lesson for everyone to learn how important it is to avoid negative press or negative things said about you. Compare this to what is going on in the current national political situation where current candidates are being questioned about events decades old. Yet, with the Internet these old stories become news to people who never heard them before. In addition, it becomes easy to string together a series of stories that show a pattern that could not be shown using the old model of print media or even radio and TV. It is a lesson for any politician or business to learn. Be very careful what they say or do because everything they say or do goes into the hopper and remains there forever.

Google's announcement is impressive, but remember that the Internet is only a decade old. Faster and more efficient search capabilities will allow future generations the ability to find information even faster than they can today. Anyone who has any kind of public persona will have everything about them available for anyone to see forever. This can easily be used by anyone researching an issue for a current problem. I remember how hard it was several years ago when the issue of the well first surfaced. It took us several months to first get, and then decipher old information about previous users of water from Song Lake. We couldn't use the net back then because the information wasn't there. For the Flying J fight the net became vastly more important. We were able to find information about similar fights going on all over the country and this became a key element in our defeat of Flying J. For Preble's future fights this site and other resources will be used to provide historical evidence that will help those trying to defend themselves. In short the Internet has permanently changed the way things are done. No longer will someone in a position of power be able to use it to benefit themselves without the light of day shining brightly. Businesses too, have to be careful of what they do, because their actions are never forgotten and will be used in the future to judge them.