Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

What can Google do for you? The no-frills search engine has taken the Internet by storm. But if you're using it just for simple Web research, you're tapping only a fraction of its potential.

Article Excerpt
When preparing for her daughter s birthday party, a Florida woman thought it would be fun for the children to play with spray string. But during the party, a can of the string fell onto the cake's lit candles and ignited in what one person called "a gigantic fireball." The accident left an 11-year-old girl with serious facial burns.

After the girl's mother talked to a lawyer, the lawyer's paralegal researched the company that made the string. The paralegal uncovered a wealth of information--including details about an earlier recall of the product, because it could catch fire, and a video produced by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, showing government tests where spray string hitting a lit candle turned into a flamethrower.

Using traditional legal research methods, uncovering this information would have taken months or even years. In this case, it took only about an hour. How did the paralegal do it? By using a powerful litigation research tool, one that's available to all but overlooked by many: Google.

Internet users use Google more than any other search engine. (1) "Googling" has even become a recognized verb. (2)

In an age where the start-ups that survived the dot-corn Big Bang have become multifaceted, billion-dollar stars, Google retains a refreshing simplicity. Its home page (www.google.com) is still little more than a search box, without the usual cacophony of ads and links.

Maybe because of its universality and ease of use, Google doesn't strike most people as a serious research tool. Cite Google in lieu of expert witnesses and you are liable to earn little more than a judge's scorn?Yet many researchers and investigators say Google is their first--and sometimes last--online stop. Some judges even rely on Google as legal authority. (4) There is much more to the site than its 6 billion-plus indexed items. (5)

Revealing the invisible Web

An article on Google that appeared in the Washington Post described the search site as this century's answer to Melvil Dewey's library cataloging system. (6) In fact, Google repudiates traditional classification systems, embracing the principle "Search, don't sort." (7)

Google scans the Web to create and maintain a gigantic index, which it...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!