Time for Search Neutrality?

 

I've argued in the past that Google shouldn't be penalized for creating a monopoly on search. All done through better product and consumer preference. But this editorial from Adam Raff in the times did at the very least give me pause.

"Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself. The F.C.C. needs to look beyond network neutrality and include “search neutrality”: the principle that search engines should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial and based solely on relevance."

"Another way that Google exploits its control is through preferential placement. With the introduction in 2007 of what it calls “universal search,” Google began promoting its own services at or near the top of its search results, bypassing the algorithms it uses to rank the services of others. Google now favors its own price-comparison results for product queries, its own map results for geographic queries, its own news results for topical queries, and its own YouTube results for video queries. And Google’s stated plans for universal search make it clear that this is only the beginning."

Now, if I argue that network neutrality is necessary to keep the infrastructure of the web ripe for innovation, and we agree that search is structural to the internet, wouldn't the same rules apply here?

photo via dunny