RULES OF ENSLAVEMENT: Why Google fears for the internet's future

GOOGLE fears governments and web giants threaten the very notion of online freedom.

Sergey Brin and Larry Page

GOOGLE co-founder Sergey Brin says the internet has entered a brave new world, where the rules have been re-written by governments and web giants.

The 38-year-old billionaire fears in today's web environment, dominated by Facebook and Apple, Google could never have been born.

"There's a lot to be lost. For example, all the information in apps - that data is not crawlable by web crawlers. You can't search it," he told The Guardian.

And it goes beyond that, according to Mr Brin, who says governments in countries like China and Iran have "put the genie back in the bottle" - and we're all the worse off for it.

"Very powerful forces... have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world," he said.

"I am more worried than I have been in the past. It's scary."

Mr Brin said he also reckoned the "walled gardens" operated by Apple and Facebook come at the cost of our web freedom.

And he harbours growing concerns over the influence some governments have over their citizens' internet access.

"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," he said.

But Chinese activist Ai Weiwei isn't convinced that governments will win the battle for control and censorship.

"In the long run, they must understand it's not possible for them to control the internet unless they shut it off - and they can't live with the consequences of that," he wrote in The Guardian.

Mr Brin said of Facebook and Apple: "you have to play by their rules", and also cited the entertainment industry's anti-piracy movement as a roadblock to web freedom.