  In this entry, we have seen how various ethical issues arose during key developmental stages of search technology that eventually led to contemporary “Web 2.0-era search engines.” Search technology itself has evolved over the past 75 years—i.e., from pre-computer-based techniques (such as memex) intended to help scientists and professional researchers locate and retrieve important information in a timely manner, to an Internet-based technology that assisted ordinary users in locating (and linking directly to) relevant Web sites in response to their manifold search queries, to a highly sophisticated technology that, in its current form, has become increasingly commodified and personalized to the point that it might now be regarded as a threat to some of our basic freedoms and democratic ideals.