As online giant Google Inc. buys up an increasing amount of content properties – YouTube, newly acquired encyclopedia site Knol and Blogger, to name a few – as well as holding the “keys to directing users around the Web,” critics say doubts over Google's claims that it is not a media company are getting bigger and harder to ignore, The New York Times reported Sunday.

“Google can say they are not in the content business, but if they are paying people and distributing and archiving their work, it is getting harder to make that case,” Jason Calacanis, chief executive of search engine Mahalo, told The New York Times. “They are competing for talent, for advertisers and for users.”

As Google gets bigger and bigger, its role as both a search engine and a content site makes the issue of how it is perceived even more important. Google representatives deny the content it hosts, such as that on three-week-old Knol, is favoured in search results, but the perception that it could play favourites is still there.

“The question in people's minds is how unbiased can Google be as it grows and grows and grows,” Wenda Harris Millard, co-chief executive of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, told The New York Times.

Google's aim is to connect people with content, not create it, Gabriel Stricker, a Google spokesman, told The New York Times. So while Google hosts content (Knol is a tool for people to create and publish content, which is organised by Google, Stricker said), it will never create it, he said.

Meanwhile, media companies, such as WebMD are joining in on posting content on Knol, hoping to further build their brands online, according to The New York Times.

While Google insists it is not a content-creator, and is there to help media companies, its status of “frenemy” is still a nagging worry for publishers.

“If I am a content provider and I depend upon Google as a mechanism to drive traffic to me, should I fear that they may compete with me in the future?” David B. Yoffie, Harvard Business School professor asked The New York Times. “The answer is absolutely, positively yes.”

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