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The line between Google and government is destined to blur. You can say that such lines have been blurring, through privatisation, for a long time. But there is a difference between the privatisation of tasks that started in the 1980s and the privatisation of analysis that Google portends. Google is going to have a special role in shaping the ends of government. Google strengthens a key argument in favour of privatisation: why should a sclerotic and bureaucratic government deny itself the tools so plentifully available in the private sector? But Google weakens a key argument in favour of freedom: that a modern economy is too complex for a single entity to make sense of. Privatisation used to mean decentralisation. It no longer necessarily does.
