This morning’s Observer column…

Why does Google remind one of Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls for 20 years and arguably the most inventive judge of his time, forever generating new precedents and concepts and requiring the weekly updating of legal textbooks? Things got so bad that a law student once famously wrote to the Times requesting that the Master of the Rolls should stop making new law until the Bar exams were over.

Google is like Denning on steroids. Scarcely a week goes by without it unveiling yet another wheeze to put someone else out of business. The converse also applies: if Google says it wants to be your friend – as with eBay recently – your share price goes up. But in the main most of Google’s announcements involve plans to eat somebody’s lunch…