Foreword

A general trend of the early 21st century has been the use of the Internet despite of TV as an information provider. (Cogar, P. (ed.) (2007). TV vs. the Internet: Internet wins.)

There are today 1,596,270,108 Internet users in the world (Internet World Stats. (2009). World Internet Usage Statistics News and World Population Stats.) and basically most of them already have their habits: checking their e-mail box(es), making research, finding information about goods and services, online chatting, reading the news. (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission. (2005). Household use of the Internet survey 2005.)

Most of the functions described above can be done through an unique information exchange provider: the search engines.

According to the main actors in Internet traffic measurements search engines are by far the most visited websites. (Alexa Web. (n.d). Alexa Top 500 Global Sites.)/(Netcraft. (n.d). Most visited websites.)

The main search engines actors are nowadays providing all kind of services making the Internet use very comfortable.

However using a single search engine everyday make people conditioned to process information in a certain way.

Such habits taken at home may unfortunately be present at work or the other way around.

It is for sure comfortable to have a standard when dealing with computers. As an example Microsoft is the leading Operating System on computers with more than 90% of the all market. (One Stat. (2007). OneStat Website Statistics and website metrics - Press Room.) But is Microsoft the computer? The same question arise with search engines: are they the Internet?

« Risks of search engine dependency and its influence on data quality » has been written in the scope of understanding the potential risks of search engines addiction on businesses.

Search engines such as Google are used by all Internet users. According to studies, Internet users are confident, satisfied and trust search engines. (Fallows, D. (2005). Search Engine users.) They unfortunately show that users are unaware and naïve as well.

Search engines are set up to find information on the Internet, information being the basis of any good decision making we can then understand how important and interesting it is for businesses to understand what are the consequences of their use.