Search Neutrality

“The neutral communications medium is essential to our society. It is the basis of a fair competitive market economy. It is the basis of democracy, by which a community should decide what to do. It is the basis of science, by which humankind should decide what is true. Let us protect the neutrality of the net.”—Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the World Wide Web

Since 2005, Network Neutrality issues have been at the centre of the debate about the founding principles of the Internet and how best to safeguard its future.

According to Google (July 16 2006):

“Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet. The Internet has operated according to this neutrality principle since its earliest days. Indeed, it is this neutrality that has allowed many companies, including Google, to launch, grow, and innovate. Fundamentally, net neutrality is about equal access to the Internet. In our view, the broadband carriers should not be permitted to use their market power to discriminate against competing applications or content. Just as telephone companies are not permitted to tell consumers who they can call or what they can say, broadband carriers should not be allowed to use their market power to control activity online.”

The above quote suggests that Net Neutrality is about equal access to the Internet, but in truth, its scope is narrower than this. The debate about Net Neutrality tends to focus exclusively on the issues of access to the physical infrastructure of the Internet, and, more specifically, to its bandwidth.  But Search Engines have become the undisputed gateway to the Internet, and are now arguably as essential a component of its infrastructure as the underlying network itself.

If we are to truly focus concern on “equal access to the Internet”, then we must broaden our horizons beyond Net Neutrality to include the equally important concept of Search Neutrality.

Search Neutrality can be defined as the principle that search engines should be open and transparent about their editorial policies, or, better still, should have no editorial policies other than that their results be comprehensive, impartial, and based solely on relevance.

The issues of Search Neutrality are particularly pressing because so much of the market power lies in the hands of a single corporation. With a 90% share of the UK search market and 72% in the US, Google’s overwhelming dominance of both natural search and paid search advertising gives it unprecedented control. Google’s revenues exceeded $21 billion last year, but this pales next to the countless billions of dollars of other companies’ revenues that Google controls indirectly through its search results and AdWord listings.

There is growing evidence that Google has started quietly exercising this control in ways that stifle innovation, suppress competition, and erode consumer choice.  Foundem’s story provides a compelling example of Google discriminating against legitimate and innovative services.  Especially concerning is that Foundem’s case appears to be part of an emerging pattern of discrimination in areas that pose a threat to Google’s share of online advertising revenues.

The following table illustrates the importance of Search Neutrality and its parallels with the more established principles of Net Neutrality:

So far, the critically important issues of Search Neutrality have been largely ignored. It is crucial that we move quickly to address this omission.

To quote Google’s own Public Policy Blog (February 13 2008):