What if Google's mission extended to public records?

I have a scenario for readers to ponder: What if Google's mission extended beyond indexing the World Wide Web, and organizing private and commercial information such as medical records and books? What if Google also decided to start organizing and indexing public records that are now largely stored in paper form? What would it mean for people, communities, government entities, and other companies and organizations that drive the Internet economy?

This scenario entered my mind after a curious thing happened to my personal blog. Not many people read it, but shortly after posting an entry over the weekend -- The reality of online genealogy research: Data is limited -- there was a surprising amount of traffic to the blog. And a lot of that traffic originated from a surprising source: Google offices in Mountain View and New York. They weren't crawlers, either. They were people running desktop operating systems and spending a while looking at the front page of the blog, which features the genealogy post at the top.

I admit that I'm going out on a limb. This is pure speculation. There's no solid evidence that I could find that describes Google's plans in this area (I contacted the company's press office yesterday for comment, but have yet to hear back) and employees' interest may have nothing to do with genealogy. It's quite possible that they were looking at something else on the front page of my blog, including my thoughts on emerging 3D media vs. the video-centric view of the future outlined by YouTube's Chad Hurley.

Regardless, I was intrigued by the scenario of Google someday addressing the problem that I outlined in the genealogy post: Relatively little in the way of vital records and census returns has been digitized and made freely available online. While the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has transferred some of its huge holdings of genealogical data to the Web (including public records, such as the 1880 U.S. Census), much of it still remains in physical form -- paper records and millions of microfilm and microfiche sets. In 2006, Ancestry.com finished digitizing all federal U.S. census forms from 1790 to 1930 and has made millions of other records such as shipping lists available online, but many other records -- including state and local census information -- is lacking. Moreover, full access requires a paid subscription. As of May, 2008, the company claimed to have more than 850,000 subscribers (see PDF), but the high cost of the subscriptions -- starting at $20 per month or more than $150 per year -- is keeping many more people away.

But what if Google entered this market, and not only uploaded these public records, but also made them freely available and incorporated the contents into its high-quality search engine? It would be a hit. But would the company ever take on such a huge project? Considering Google's stated mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and its expertise in large-scale scanning projects of physical media, I believe it's not out of the question. And while "free" may not seem like a good business model compared to Ancestry.com's subscription-based website, Google's M.O. for many of its services -- ranging from gmail to YouTube -- has been to offer them for free, and later attach advertising to them or figure out another business model.

Would such a product disrupt the operations of Ancestry.com and other fee-based genealogy sites? Absolutely. But there are other possibilities for digitized records that go far beyond family research. Throw a few other standard Google elements into the mix -- XML schemas, open APIs for developers, and the company's many other Web-based services -- and this data