What is it about internet commerce that leads some to believe the normal rules of economic regulation should be stood on their head? First we had Senator Al Franken claiming that the Comcast/NBC merger violated Net Neutrality principles. Now, on this side of the Atlantic, we have Graham Jones MP, arguing that Google’s success as a search engine is squeezing out UK competitors: “British companies are being stifled. Moreover, the Treasury is losing out," according to Jones. And what does the MP for Hyndburn see as the solution to this grave situation? A complaint to the OFT, perhaps, or a competition reference to the EU? No, what we need is a whole new layer of regulation!
“It is time to look beyond network neutrality and consider 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… Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google's competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world of Google everything…”
I’m no lobbyist for Google, and they certainly don’t need me to defend their business practices, but I don’t see how the company can be criticised for being good at what it does. As for global domination, brand pervasiveness is nothing new in the UK: just think Tesco…
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