Search neutrality

Background and Definition of Search Neutrality - Search neutrality was mentioned in an academic paper by Andrew Odlyzko in March 2009. - The term gained public attention after an opinion letter by Adam Raff in December 2009. - Adam and Shivaun Raff launched SearchNeutrality.org to promote investigations against Google. - The concept of search neutrality lacks consensus compared to net neutrality. - Search engines are designed to collect, filter, and rank results based on relevance, making neutrality difficult to define and implement. Vertical Search Spam Penalties - Users rely on search engines to access information on the web. - Foundem, a vertical search service, experienced a significant drop in traffic and business. - Foundem claimed that Google deliberately applied penalties to vertical search engines as competition. - The use of iframe HTML tags and javascript loading were cited as potential reasons for the penalties. - Foundem is supported by the Initiative for Competitive Online Marketplace, a Microsoft proxy group. Other Cases and Investigations - Google's dominant market share has made it a target for search neutrality litigation. - Other companies, such as eJustice.fr and Microsoft's Ciao!, joined Foundem in claiming unfair penalties by Google. - Google expressed concern for fair competition in a blog article in February 2010. - Antitrust laws have been used to investigate search neutrality allegations against Google. - The FTC ended its antitrust investigation into Google without filing a formal complaint. Arguments for and against Search Neutrality Arguments for Search Neutrality: - Results would not be biased towards sites with more advertising, but towards sites most relevant to the user. - Encourages sites to have more quality content rather than pay to rank higher on organic results. - Restrains search engines from only supporting their best advertisers. - Allows for organized, logical manipulation of search results by an objective, automatic algorithm. - Personalized search results might suppress information that disagrees with users' worldviews, isolating them in their own cultural or ideological filter bubbles. Arguments against Search Neutrality: - Forcing search engines to treat all websites equally would remove the biased view of the Internet that search users are seeking. - Search neutrality could cause search engines to become stagnant and limit their ability to adjust rankings based on popularity, relevance, or quality content. - Requiring transparent algorithms could expose search engines' private intellectual property and allow spammers to exploit and target the algorithm. - Removing a search engine's ability to directly manipulate rankings limits their ability to penalize dishonest websites that use black hat techniques. - Search engines like Google and Bing have different levels of bias, with Google being less biased than its principal competitor. Impact of Search Neutrality on Websites - Google's Universal Search system has been criticized for using the least neutral search engine practices, leading to a decline in web traffic for external websites. - Search neutrality could potentially affect the ranking of websites and their visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). - The case against Google brought by the owners of Foundem highlights the impact of search neutrality on website rankings. - Search engines' ability to directly manipulate rankings can influence the success or failure of websites. - Search neutrality could limit search engines' ability to link to their own services, potentially affecting web traffic for external websites.