Net Neutrality Comes Back To Haunt Google

ft.com:

Google has become the main advocate in Washington for a set of regulations to prevent internet service providers favouring particular companies' traffic.

However, that campaign, over what is known as "net neutrality", has handed a gift to its own detractors.

Read the whole story: ft.com

Comments

[polmbo]

12:18 PM on 07/14/2010

This is so stupid. There is no such thing as "Search Neutrality"! If I'm searching I'm trying to find relevant information. Net Neutrality is designed to prevent your ISP from telling you what parts of the internet you can visit and turn it into a cable like service. $5/month for search engines, $5/month for sports, $5/month for this section of blogs, etc.

http://techdirt.com/articles/20100615/1849299842.shtml

[maxben]

12:55 PM on 07/14/2010

Doesn't Google have the ability to stop sites from appearing in Google Search?
If they monetized that would not it be the same issue?
The fact that they have the ability to order, remove, or add from Google Search any URL and that in fact companies pay money to have their sites higher on the page list IS a problem and IS anti-net neutrality.
If Google Search was based purely on an algorithm without human interference, than each site can rise or fall based on its own merit.

[getcaption]

04:57 PM on 07/14/2010

I agree with polmbo. I am somewhat wary of any attempt to confound 'net neutrality' with 'search neutrality' (referring to the article itself). There is only one internet, so we require net neutrality. There are plenty of search engines, so the 'neutrality' of one search engine is not as critical. From the article, I don't see how net neutrality is haunting google. I certainly support the use of anti-trust laws against google, but not under the cover of net neutrality. I believe net neutrality aims to achieve an entirely different thing than controlling how search engines conduct themselves or make money. For the record, I think google is to be commended for its general fairness but of course I don't know the details of its money making schemes. I just know you can get an answer to 'what's better than google' from google itself.

[olafTheAwesome]

06:12 PM on 07/14/2010

Those who are now talking of "search neutrality" are just miffed that they have not been able to develop a kick.ass search algorithm like Google's and are using it as a red herring to gain a foothold in the search engine market.

As a web developer who has to grapple with the issue of pageranking on a day-to-day basis, I have not come across any evidence to show that Google manipulates the rankings in any way. And they clearly separate sponsored links from non-sponsored links, unlike other search engines like Bing which just mix everything together. The only time Google does actually stop sites from appearing on their search listings is when one is caught trying to cheat his way to a higher pageranking.

[LisaDi]

11:09 AM on 07/14/2010

First I would advice them to refrain from using the finger code L for losers.

[StansDad]

10:54 AM on 07/14/2010

looks like net neutrality is only to be defended if it's good PR, and not affecting your bottom line.