Tens of thousands of Internet users were left without access to search engine giant Google this week…

Hello, I’m Charlotte Bellis and you’re watching Newsy.com.

It’s the internet technology we’ve all come to rely on- Google – so the outage caused outrage.

Let’s start our coverage by going directly to Twitter users… who were the first to report the problems…

“What do you do when Google fails? Search on MSN or Yahoo!? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Google is too big that it can’t fail. … There should be a government regulation or something.”
(Twitter)

The LA Times was more symbolic…

“Imagine your 20 favorite people. Now imagine that three of them had their hands chopped off. Aaaargh!” (The LA Times)

Apparently, an error occurred in one of Google’s systems, causing the company to direct some of its web traffic through Asia and that created a traffic jam.

Google tried to explain the problem to non-techies by giving this analogy on its blog.

“Imagine if you were trying to fly from New York to San Francisco, but your plane was routed through an airport in Asia. And a bunch of other planes were sent that way too, so your flight was backed up and your journey took much longer than expected.” (Google)

Even when we know what the problem is – CNBC says – just like the weather – there’s not much we can do…

"Anchor A: It was definitely underplayed. We know that technology sucks sometimes, and it's going to continue to suck, no matter what we do. We’ll get past it.
Anchor B: Microsoft swooped in and banged them over the head about it. I think it shows that even the giants are not invincible and we’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again."
(CNBC)

A Forbes writer takes a step back and looks at the bigger picture.

“The real issue was access to now-vital tools for work and life. And the glaring question was, Have we become too dependent on single large providers of our services?” (Forbes)

A Google customer says it doesn’t really matter -- telling the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Because of the nature of technology, whether it’s Google's or someone else’s …You’re going to get bitten by the beast.”
(San Francisco Chronicle)

Sci/Health News

Bring Back My Google

May 15, 2009
(2:13)
Internet users across the globe experienced a temporary Google outage this week, but the problem reflects a more subtle impact. Newsy.com takes a look.
   
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