It would be more useful perhaps if--rather than merely monitoring the front-facing site for attacks--Google offered a more sophisticated service that webmasters could sign up to that could monitor server logs, or something similar. Google would love to get its hands on such data, no doubt, so this could serve everybody well.

However, speaking as somebody who runs several high-traffic Websites, I'm suspicious of Google's new service. I'd prefer either a direct line to the people who control it, in case I end up with a false positive that drives users away, or a method of opting out of the scheme.

The issue of who polices the net is becoming ever more important as time goes on. Without government control, it's falling to organizations like Google to enact the best policies they can. With great power comes great responsibility, however, and there is no oversight and little comeback for many features Google is rolling out. This is undoubtedly going to lead to some sticky situations in future.

Keir Thomas has been writing about computing since the last century, and more recently has written several best-selling books. You can learn more about him at and his Twitter feed is .