Search, but You May Not Find

[Commentary] The Federal Communications Commission errs in directing Network Neutrality regulation at Internet service providers. 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 FCC 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. 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. The FCC 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.

[Adam Raff is a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology firm.]

(12/27)