In an interview with The Guardian Google's co-founder Brin has criticised social Networking site Facebook and technology giant Apple for being huge threat to internet freedom.

He cited a wide range of attacks on "the open Internet," including government censorship and interception of data, overzealous attempts to protect intellectual property, and new communication portals that use web technologies and the internet, but under restrictive corporate control.

"The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the Web was so open," Brin told The Guardian. "Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."

In a refence to the governments of countries like China, which Google partially pulled out of in 2010—and Iran and Saudi Arabia, which closely control how information is retrieved and disseminated Brin said  "I thought there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, but now it seems in certain areas the genie has been put back in the bottle," he said. "There's a lot to be lost. For example, all the information in apps that data is not crawlable by Web crawlers. You can't search it."

Brin's criticism of Facebook is likely to be seen as controversial with the social network approaching an estimated $US100 billion flotation. Google's upstart rival has seen explosive growth, with more than 800 million members worldwide and one in two of all Americans with computer access signed up, a media report says.

Brin said he and co-founder Larry Page would not have been able to create Google if the internet was dominated by Facebook. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive. The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the web was so open. Once you get too many rules that will stifle innovation."

Brin said these companies’ proprietary platforms and stringent user-control policies could stifle Internet freedom and access to information. "You have to play by their rules, which are really restrictive," he said. "The kind of environment that we developed Google in, the reason that we were able to develop a search engine, is the Web was so open. Once you get too many rules, that will stifle innovation."