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<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">McTim<br>
<br>
So you agree with Lauren that urgent regulatory action is needed to
ensure network neutrality, and that efforts to confuse this issue
should be resisted. Efforts at confusion like the arguments " </font>that
Internet content edge-caching (like that used by Akamai, Amazon,
Google, and many other Web services) somehow violates net neutrality
principles -- clearly a false assertion.<font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">" (quoting the article you
forwarded.)<br>
<br>
That to me is a great improvement on whatever I have ever heard you
speak on network neutrality on this list :). (And i remember the
precise 'confusing argument' of edge catching got discussed during NN
discussions on this list.) So congrats to us, we are in a rare
agreement.<br>
<br>
<br>
However, what goes past me is that while i agree that when FCC is
discussing NN, it is of no avail, and even reprehensible, for the
implicated parties to point fingers at Google alleging another kind of
anti-competitive practice, I cant see how Adam Raff's article can be
criticized on this account. He mentions NN only in the passing in the
opening para just to show that Google itself is not all smelling of
roses. Also there is definitely a connection between NN practices and
allegations about Google, both being anti-competitive activities. <br>
<br>
Rest of the article has to be dealt on its own merit, not only in terms
of muddying waters in the NN debate. That is unfair. Adam clearly
supports NN regulation, but he has a right to go ahead and make his
case against Google. And it is not an ordinary article - it is a NYT
op-ed, and so if Google has something to say or refute it must issue a
rejoinder. <br>
<br>
Just addressing one main points of Lauren's blog in defense of Google
which seems so shallow. It is roughly the assertion, I have often
earlier also heard, that with one click one can switch search engines.
A powerful actor telling weaker dependent groups that they always have
the option to move away is a old trick, and mostly a cruel one. I wont
expand on this but I think everyone can understand this. Secondly, I
will move away only if I knew what logic/ algorithm Google used, and so
I can decide if it works for me or not. So can we at least ask it to
publish its logic of arranging search results so the consumers can make
a choice. It is a wrong thing to ask? So what really is Lauren's blog
trying to do by being so defensive about Google and what exactly you
are agreeing with is not clear to me.<br>
<br>
</font>"Fundamentally, Google has simply provided better products, that
more
people want to use. And anyone else is free to do the same thing, at
least as long as ISPs aren't permitted to strangle the Internet playing
field via their total hold over Internet access to all sites!" (From
Luaran's blog)<br>
<br>
Competitors of Google's other products (other than search engine), Adam
is alleging, feel similarly strangled by an uneven search playing
field.... I cant see why this issue is not as important as ISPs making
connectivity pipes an even playing ground.<br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
</font><br>
McTim wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:f65fb55e0912290641x504e39eah13fce975663d70c7@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div>see below for a different perspective, one which I agree with
for the most part:</div>
<div> </div>
<div> "Search Neutrality" and Propaganda Deluxe"</div>
<div> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000658.html">http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000658.html</a><br>
</div>
<div> </div>
<div>-- <br>
Cheers,<br>
<br>
McTim<br>
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there." Jon Postel<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 29, 2009 at 12:32 AM, Parminder <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder@itforchange.net</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote
style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"
class="gmail_quote">
<div bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000"><font
face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">See below an interesting article
on how the company that seeks to 'organise the world's knowledge'
really may be doing it. It is time we called for complete disclosure in
public interest of search logics of Google and other search engine,
which truly are now a (the?) principal source of information and
knowledge globally. Also a point to ponder for those who think
everything, including controlling excesses of market power, can be done
bottom-up and may not need policy regimes. <br>
<br>
Parminder<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28raff.html"
target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/28/opinion/28raff.html</a>
<br>
<br>
</font>
<h1><small><small>Search, but You May Not Find </small></small></h1>
<div>By ADAM RAFF</div>
<div>Published: December 27, 2009 </div>
<p>AS we become increasingly dependent on the Internet, we need to
be increasingly concerned about how it is regulated. The Federal
Communications Commission has proposed “network neutrality” rules,
which would prohibit Internet service providers from discriminating
against or charging premiums for certain services or applications on
the Web. The commission is correct that ensuring equal access to the
infrastructure of the Internet is vital, but it errs in directing its
regulations only at service providers like AT&T and Comcast. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The need for search neutrality is particularly pressing because
so much market power lies in the hands of one company: Google. With 71
percent of the United States search market (and 90 percent in Britain),
Google’s dominance of both search and search advertising gives it
overwhelming control. Google’s revenues exceeded $21 billion last year,
but this pales next to the hundreds of billions of dollars of other
companies’ revenues that Google controls indirectly through its search
results and sponsored links.</p>
<p>One way that Google exploits this control is by imposing covert
“penalties” that can strike legitimate and useful Web sites, removing
them entirely from its search results or placing them so far down the
rankings that they will in all likelihood never be found. For three
years, my company’s vertical search and price-comparison site, Foundem,
was effectively “disappeared” from the Internet in this way. </p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Because of its domination of the global search market and
ability to penalize competitors while placing its own services at the
top of its search results, Google has a virtually unassailable
competitive advantage. And Google can deploy this advantage well beyond
the confines of search to any service it chooses. Wherever it does so,
incumbents are toppled, new entrants are suppressed and innovation is
imperiled.</p>
<p>Google’s treatment of Foundem stifled our growth and constrained
the development of our innovative search technology. The preferential
placement of Google Maps helped it unseat MapQuest from its position as
America’s leading online mapping service virtually overnight. The share
price of TomTom, a maker of navigation systems, has fallen by some 40
percent in the weeks since the announcement of Google’s free
turn-by-turn satellite navigation service. And RightMove, Britain’s
leading real-estate portal, lost 10 percent of its market value this
month on the mere rumor that Google planned a real-estate search
service here. </p>
<p>Without search neutrality rules to constrain Google’s
competitive advantage, we may be heading toward a bleakly uniform world
of Google Everything — Google Travel, Google Finance, Google Insurance,
Google Real Estate, Google Telecoms and, of course, Google Books. </p>
<p>Some will argue that Google is itself so innovative that we
needn’t worry. But the company isn’t as innovative as it is regularly
given credit for. Google Maps, Google Earth, Google Groups, Google
Docs, Google Analytics, Android and many other Google products are all
based on technology that Google has acquired rather than invented. </p>
<p>Even AdWords and AdSense, the phenomenally efficient economic
engines behind Google’s meteoric success, are essentially borrowed
inventions: Google acquired AdSense by purchasing Applied Semantics in
2003; and AdWords, though developed by Google, is used under license
from its inventors, Overture.</p>
<p>Google was quick to recognize the threat to openness and
innovation posed by the market power of Internet service providers, and
has long been a leading proponent of net neutrality. But it now faces a
difficult choice. Will it embrace search neutrality as the logical
extension to net neutrality that truly protects equal access to the
Internet? Or will it try to argue that discriminatory market power is
somehow dangerous in the hands of a cable or telecommunications company
but harmless in the hands of an overwhelmingly dominant search engine?</p>
<p>The F.C.C. is now inviting public comment on its proposed
network neutrality rules, so there is still time to persuade the
commission to expand the scope of the regulations. In particular, it
should ensure that the principles of transparency and nondiscrimination
apply to search engines as well as to service providers. The
alternative is an Internet in which innovation can be squashed at will
by an all-powerful search engine. </p>
<div>
<p><i>Adam Raff is a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology
firm.</i> </p>
</div>
<br>
</div>
<br>
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