  The ethical issues examined in this entry are mainly from a deontological perspective, thus reflecting the published work on this topic to date. However, in no way is our analysis of ethical issues affecting search engines intended to be exhaustive; rather it merely reflects the standard or “mainstream” approach that applied ethicists and other scholars have taken thus far in their analyses of search engine controversies. One could easily imagine questions arising from other ethical perspectives as well. From the vantage point of social justice, for example, one could reasonably ask whether search engine companies in the U.S. and other developed nations are morally obligated to help bridge the “information divide” by providing easier and more ubiquitous access (via search technologies) to users in developing nations, especially to non-English speaking users. Also, from a utilitarian or consequentialist perspective, one might ask whether the overall social consequences would be more beneficial if search engine users were legally permitted to retrieve some forms of proprietary information (e.g. proprietary online information concerning health and public-health studies that were made possible by tax-payer funding) for personal use.