An argument for search engine neutrality

Over at Slashdot, they point out a story about how a particular web site dropped out of Google's search index, and therefore into oblivion:

We had completely disappeared from Google's main index! If you run a website, then you know how serious a problem this is. On any given day over 10,000 visitors arrive at Javalobby as a result of Google searches, and suddenly they stopped coming! ... Suddenly we no longer existed in the eyes of Google.

Now, this sounds to me exactly the phenomenon that net neutrality advocates are fearing: a money-hungry company effectively controlling who does and doesn't see your site. As Dave Skrenta explains:

The net isn't a directed graph. It's not a tree. It's a single point labeled G connected to 10 billion destination pages.

If the Internet were a monolithic product, say the work of some alternate-future AT&T that hadn't been broken up, then you'd turn it on and it would have a start page. From there you'd be able to reach all of the destination services, however many there were.

Well, that's how the net has organized itself after all.

Google has much more power over what you see and don't see than any network provider. In the telecoms world, no company has more than 22% of the consumer market, while Google's share is somewhere between 50% and 70%, depending on whom you ask.

So if our goal is to preserve an Internet which allows equal access to any and all sites, which company really holds the power?

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To be clear, I think Google should have 100% freedom (as they do now) to determine how sites appear on Google, and I think AT&T (and Verizon and Comcast and Sprint and Global Crossing) should have the same freedom to determine how data flows over their pipes. The consumer will make the call and direct their business accordingly.

The idea of telling Google how to run their search engine in the interest of "neutrality" is absurd, no? And yet neutrality advocates are making precisely that argument against companies that have much less influence than Google.

It is not a coincidence that Google is a big supporter of network neutrality regulation. It is in their financial interest to do so. They control a disproportionate share of the Internet user's experience, and they want to keep it that way.

I think most people would agree that regulating Google would not be in consumers' interests. If we want to continue development of a free and rapidly evolving Internet -- from the physical network to information brokers like Google -- let's not tell the companies that comprise it how to do business.

(h/t Instapundit)

Comments

[Pixelkiller]

Thanks to Instapundit, "Dog Pile" is now the default search engine on my browser. What-the-hell.
In your title you say you are the last, (same as only, sort of), Republican in SFO. I was born in that town way back before the war, (WW-2), went to school there and only left to go to college here in the east. Then, after graduating, I got my "magic" letter from Uncle Sam, along with a single subway token. After basic, he sent me back here. (spooky?) I've been back to San Francisco, naturally, but less and less over the years as it breaks my heart to see what it has become.
Here is "Doity Joisey" we have only to contend with corruption. (The Sopranos was like a documentary or a home video from one the local familys down the block). But you, you poor bastard, are surrounded by and up to your neck in stupidity. A very much more dangerous situation.
Good luck to you, however.

[Jason Coyne]

There is a huge difference between google and the networks. Google is powerful because people use it. They are free to switch (back) to Yahoo, or dogpile, or anything else.

The networks were granted monopolies. People have no choice about how their traffic is routed. Only in the last mile (Am I using cable or DSL, or (oh god) Dial up).

The destination sites that people go to for their media have no control at all over my network.

If networks start using onerous, non-neutral policies, there is no way for the vast majority of people to switch.

If you take away the monopolies (force networks to share infrastructure with other companies), then im fine with abandoning neutrality, because someone can just share the infrastructure and use better policies to steal the customers.

With the (in many cases government enforced) monopolies in place, Neutrality is mandatory.

Yes google has a lot of power. And if you get delisted it can kill your company. But google is in the same position as the companies they delist.

If firefox makes dogpile their default search engine tommorow, or people get fed up with delistings, they will switch. And google will pass into the night.

[Matt S]

Jason, I agree with you that switching costs for Google are very low, and if a better product comes along, consumers can change quickly.

But your assertions about monopoly strike me as a bit odd. In the bad old days, there were phone and cable monoplies. They are going away due to new competition, the result of deregulation.

AT&T and Verizon are in the cable TV business, Comcast (and everyone else) is in the phone business, Sprint is building WiMax. They are all in the Internet access business.

My question is, where is the monopoly?

Monopolies can only exist when the government grants them. Here's how net neutrality regulation will help to keep the dinosaurs powerful: http://www.onlyrepublican.com/orinsf/2007/01/net_neutrality_.html

[Jon]

"AT&T and Verizon are in the cable TV business, Comcast (and everyone else) is in the phone business, Sprint is building WiMax. They are all in the Internet access business.

My question is, where is the monopoly?"

The monopoly is in the last mile. In most cases, a consumer has at best 2 choices for broadband access. The local cable company or the local phone company. For rural users, they typically have only one as an option. (Satellite internet is only a step above dialup in many cases.) Just because they both offer internet, does not mean we have true choices. Which provider we are with boils down to who are we getting screwed the least by? If they both adopt network rules that remove my access to Google, my only option becomes dialup or satellite to get to Google. If Google delisted 1Bn of the sites it indexes, I can still chose one of hundreds if not thousands of search sites to fulfill my searching needs AND I can still get to every single one of those sites with out Google.

[Josh]

I have to agree with Jason and Jon. The reason why net neutrality is important is so Google can't lock in its dominance by paying the network owners to load its pages faster than its competitors. As big as it gets, the playing field is still essentially level.

It doesn't make sense to talk about "search engine neutrality" because indexing and ranking are by definition non-neutral functions. The search algorithm is based on a set of values.