This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English EconomicsReport.

Google is a powerful tool for users of the electroniccommunications system called the Internet. Computer users connectingto the Internet can use Google to search for any word, name or idea.Google finds electronic documents, or web pages, with news,information -- almost anything. More than eighty-million people usethe Google Web page each month.

Two young men, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, started Google innineteen-ninety-eight. At the time, they were students at StanfordUniversity in California. They created a search engine, a way tolook for words on the Internet. The technology they developedchooses Web pages with the links closest to the word or words theuser is searching for.

Google was not the first Internet search engine. But people foundit easy to use. Today, Google performs two-hundred-million searcheseveryday. It can search more than four-thousand-million web pages atone time. Yet each search takes less than one second. Google haseven become an action word: to "google" means to search forinformation on the Internet.

The search service that Google offers is free. But Google alsoprovides links to Web pages of companies that sell goods andservices. Companies pay Google every time someone uses it to connectwith their web page. The amount a company pays depends on its size.

Google's business has grown very quickly. The company made almostone-thousand-million dollars in two-thousand-three. Its profit wasmore than one-hundred-million dollars.

Late last month, Google announced that it wanted to become apublic company. This means that Google will sell its ownershipshares to the public. The company hopes to raise abouttwo-thousand-seven-hundred-million dollars this way. But it has notsaid how many shares it would sell. It also has not set a price forthe shares or the date when they will be sold.

Some business experts have criticized Google for not releasingenough information about the company before the sale. But there isno question that investors are interested in the company's shares.

The people who may gain the most from the sale are Mister Brinand Mister Page. Each man owns fifteen-percent of the company. Afterthe sale, they could both be worth several thousand million dollars.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by MarioRitter. This is Bob Doughty.