您正在看的时事英语是:英语新闻导读 2004.3.23。 t Google will go public and sell stock has generated rumblings that shareholder considerations might trump those of Google users.

And already, advocacy groups have complained about Google's policy of rejecting critical ads alongside regular search results. Recently, Google banned an environmental group's ads that protested a cruise line's sewage treatment methods.

Some merchants also complain that sudden changes in Google's ranking formula can wipe them off the Internet. They suspect pressure to buy ads, though Google says its changes help thwart tricks Web sites use to artificially boost listings.

Google's formula, for the most part, remains top secret, and Google co-founder Larry Page acknowledges that the company could do better in spelling out guidelines on advertising and censorship.

"We're quite a young company, growing really fast and dealing with real global issues," Page said. "Sometimes it takes time to understand the issues."

In the meantime, "secrecy always feeds the imagination and gives people the freedom to think whatever the wildest thing they can conjure up is," said Frank Hayson, editor of a Web site named Watching Google Like A Hawk.

Doug Cutting, lead developer of an open-source alternative called Nutch that seeks to better eXPlain decisions behind its search results, said people may trust Google today, "but should we have to trust them forever just blindly?"

A play on the number Googol -- 1 followed by 100 zeros -- Google Inc. was born on Sept. 7, 1998, in a garage in Menlo Park, Calif. Through word of mouth among the tech elite, its search engine soon toppled powerhouses at the time, including Yahoo and AltaVista.

The secret sauce: A ranking system that equates relevancy with popularity. Google believes sites are more likely to link to other sites they find useful, so a site scores higher the more links it has to it. The result is greater relevancy than using keywords alone.

Because Google finds Web sites and scores them using automated software tools, it can index millions more sites than human-powered search directories, which once were considered the best.

Over time, Google became even more influential as it licensed its technology to supplement searches at Yahoo and America Online. (Yahoo! Inc. ended the relationship last month and, like Microsoft Corp. is aggressively developing rival technology.)

But Google as the market leader also draws the brunt of complaints, even those that apply to rivals, too. And that has led to some calls, though none serious or strong, for regulation or oversight.

"We have all sorts of protections against government abuse, ... but figuring out what to do when you have a private party w