Google & search neutrality

The other morning Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted about Techdirt and their articles about search engine rankings simply being opinions and recommendations.

What are your thoughts on search neutrality? Some might argue that searches are driven by what people are looking for, what they recommend and what they think is the best, therefore it’s nearly impossible to have total neutrality. But try telling that to the various anti-Google groups that are abound on the internet. They’re of the opinion that every search engine except for Google plays fair when it comes to net neutrality.

Honestly, how can there be such a thing as search neutrality? Obviously people are behind searches, and obviously we have some kind of bias going on. We search for information in favor of pregnancy, for information in favor of spaying and neutering our pets, for information on the next best Android phone or the newest Blackberry phone. We’re always in favor of something, and our searches will reflect that.

And seriously, Microsoft is the last company that should be finger-pointing and making accusations of anti-competitive behavior, seeing as how they themselves are a convicted monopolist! Not only that, but while it’s true that Google has 85% of the market in searches, Microsoft themselves has 91% of the operating system market. So if they’re going to cry “search neutrality”, shouldn’t they also be crying “operating system neutrality”?

Filed Under: General