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And Google's place in that?

"Now clearly, there is a danger of information overload, because the only flipside of having no information is having so much information you don't know where to start looking. That's where the role of somebody like Google comes in, with a very simple mission, which is to organise the world's information and make it accessible to everybody from wherever there are."

Now this sounds all very well, good and simple. But the more Mr Arora talks - despite his protestations that Google thinks first about coming up with the smart idea, and then second about how to make money from it - the more he reveals the hard commercial reality of the business he's involved with.

And as well as being full of grand thinking about introducing a level playing field for accessing information, Mr Arora's language is peppered with commerce, with references to the web as "the lowest-cost distribution channel" and a place to "transact".

"We are in transition. The society of the future - I can't predict whether it will be in two, five or 10 years time - will do things on the internet; on this new method of connectivity and this new method of distribution that is out there," he says. And woe betide those businesses that fail to take advantage or "monetise" what the internet does.

"Today, I hear that $50 billion of goods and services will transacted in the UK on the internet this year. Globally that number wil be far in excess of $250 billion. The internet now, globally, has become like a WalMart or a GE in terms of goods and services transacted. I can remember when it was zero," says Mr Arora.

"Clearly, this is becoming serious business. News media is transforming, the audio business and the voice business is transforming. What is driving this is 1 billion people connected and significant numbers of them connected via broadband.

"The internet has evolved from a place where people look for information, to a place where they look to transact. It has democratised and it has become trusted. People's discovery patterns are changing and their transaction patterns are changing."

And the more he talks, and he talks very ably, the more Mr Arora seems to embody the paradox that is the modern Google. Smart, imaginative, commercially savvy - but slightly confused at some of the increasingly negative headlines it has been attracting.

For the company, once so beloved of early-stage internet techies and pioneers, has transformed into a commercial and financial powerhouse. Revenues last year of $3.4 billion, and forecast revenues for this year of $5.5 billion, have helped spur the recently floated company's share price to $300 earlier this year.

Its valuation of $85 billion at the time - amid predictions that could rise to $100 billion - means that Google now dwarfs media giants such as Time Warner and Walt Disney, which might once have looked on in gentle amusement at the internet upstart that began life as an idea conceived in a garage just over seven years ago.

It's not just the internet that threatens to dwarf WalMart or GE, so too does Google.

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