Google’s Problems (In Their Words)

A ZDNet post highlights a list of potential problems Google says may affect their success (this is from a Google statement to investors for the first quarter 2006). In a nutshell:

1. Google may have scaling problems with increased traffic.
2. Google relies on bandwidth providers, so they’re vulnerable to their actions in that way.
3. Ad blockers could block Google AdSense/ AdWords.
4. Google might have problems searching proprietary document formats on the web, e.g. if Microsoft adds indexing “protection” mechanisms to Word files.
5. Search engine spam harms the results relevancy of Google
6. Google could face more privacy concerns, and a damaged reputation coming out of that.
7. Google isn’t fully prepared if the mobile web takes off, as their apps don’t work across all mobile browsers.
8. Google faces click fraud.