( Wired ) -- Google 's search engine was created when most of the Web 's information was open and available to anyone willing to capture it . In today 's more restrictive environment , Google co-founder Sergey Brin and CEO Larry Page may not have even tried to start the company . `` The kind of environment that we developed Google in , the reason that we were able to develop a search engine , is the Web was so open , '' Brin told The Guardian . `` Once you get too many rules , that will stifle innovation . '' In an interview published Sunday , Google 's co-founder cited a wide range of attacks on `` the open Internet , '' including government censorship and interception of data , overzealous attempts to protect intellectual property , and new communication portals that use web technologies and the internet , but under restrictive corporate control . There are `` very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world , '' says Brin . `` I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle , but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle . '' Not coincidentally , these forces map directly onto three of Google 's biggest headaches as a business in the past few years . There 's no way for Google 's servers to crawl Facebook 's pages or Apple 's smartphone apps for information . YouTube 's video clips , Google Books and other key initiatives have had to grapple with both the media industries and government court rulings or legislation . And besides having to withdraw from China to Hong Kong after a series of attacks and new censorship rules , Google has been compelled to hand over user information to the U.S. government , sometimes without being able to legally notify those users . `` If we could be in some magical jurisdiction that everyone in the world trusted , that would be great , '' says Brin . `` We 're doing it as well as can be done . '' Brin lists several other threats to the open Web ( and to Google ) : . -- Smartphone apps , as led by Apple : `` all the information in apps -- that data is not crawlable by Web crawlers . You ca n't search it . '' -- Facebook , where data goes in but never comes out : `` Facebook has been sucking down Gmail contacts for many years . '' -- SOPA and PIPA , which Brin says would have led to the U.S. using the same content-screening technology it has criticized China and Iran for using . With SOPA and PIPA , says Brin , fears of piracy had reduced the media industry to `` shooting itself in the foot , or maybe worse than in the foot . '' Still , there 's a profound audacity in Brin bundling Internet censorship in regimes like China , Saudi Arabia and Iran , which restrict user access to the web , with Facebook and Apple 's platforms , which restrict Google 's . There may be a continuum of control and closure of the Internet that connects repressive governments at one end and overbearing corporations at the other . The fight over the SOPA/PIPA legislation , where entertainment and technology companies , along with their users , fought it out in the halls of Congress , doubtlessly lies somewhere in between . But Google is likewise doubtlessly a part of that continuum , not apart from it . Because of its origin and the nature of its business , Google 's prospects are inexorably tied to the fate of the open Web . But we have to resist the urge to make the two identical . Google is n't just a Web-crawling search company anymore . Subscribe to WIRED magazine for less than $ 1 an issue and get a FREE GIFT ! Click here ! Copyright 2011 Wired.com .
Google 's co-founder Sergey Brin cited a wide range of attacks on `` the open Internet '' Apple , Facebook and China are part of the problem , Brin says . But Google has been compelled to hand over user information to the U.S. government . Brin : SOPA and PIPA would have restricted user access to the Web .