
French Company Seeks $421M From Google For “Blacklisting” - answerly
http://searchengineland.com/french-company-seeks-421m-from-google-for-blacklisting-83427
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grellas
This claim is brought under the rubric of antitrust but the impetus behind it
is found in the nascent movement seeking to subject search engines to
principles of so-called "search neutrality."

Search neutrality is explicitly modeled on the idea of net neutrality. Just as
the ISPs are told they have overriding duties to users of their networks not
to discriminate, etc., so advocates of search neutrality want to impose legal
duties on search engines to abide by overriding principles as follows (quoting
from a brilliant dissection of search neutrality by law professor James
Grimmelmann, found here:
[http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034...](http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=james_grimmelmann)):

"1. Equality: Search engines shouldn't differentiate at all among websites.

2\. Objectivity: There are correct search results and incorrect ones, so
search engines should return only the correct ones.

3\. Bias: Search engines should not distort the information landscape.

4\. Traffic: Websites that depend on a flow of visitors shouldn't be cut off
by search engines.

5\. Relevance: Search engines should maximize users' satisfaction with search
results.

6\. Self-interest: Search engines shouldn't trade on their own account.

7\. Transparency: Search engines should disclose the algorithms they use to
rank web pages.

8\. Manipulation: Search engines should rank sites only according to general
rules, rather than promoting and demoting sites on an individual basis."

Professor Grimmelmann goes on in his piece to critique each of these professed
goals of the movement and to describe the legal implications of each.

Of course, if you open this gate in naked form (i.e., by explicitly adopting
laws that expressly require search engines to abide by such duties), you
effectively set up all search engines to be devoured by litigants and their
lawyers, who can second-guess every decision, who can seek damages based on
such second-guessing, and who can ask every manner of regulator to step in to
supervise how search results are generated - all pretty much the antithesis of
what we are accustomed to in this area and a serious step back from freedom
(in my view) in an all-important area that affects us all profoundly in the
modern digital world.

All this is mostly academic today except in the case of Google, which has to
face such claims couched in terms of its allegedly abusing its monopoly
position in various markets. Whenever you hear the innocuous-sounding term
"search neutrality," however, realize that this is the direction in which it
seeks to lead us if given the full implementation sought by its advocates.

~~~
ehutch79
re #2: on the subject of 'correct' results. if I search for 'cat' whos to say
what's 'correct' maybe i was looking for lol cat images, in which case
returning information about care and feeding of a pet cat would be wrong. way
too subjective.

also re#4, i'm a 'bad guy' i DEPEND on a stream of traffic from google to hack
my victims computers so they join my botnet. how dare google shut me down! or:
i'm a content farm with content so low quality no one stays on the page longer
than 0:01. yet that nets me ad revenues, so i depend on traffic from google!
how dare they shut me down even though my page is useless to searchers.

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edw519
First this:

 _1plusV claims its sites were “blacklisted” by Google and lost most of their
traffic over a period of several years, suffering “irreparable” harm_

then this:

 _Between 2007 and 2010 no less than 30 vertical search engines created by
1plusV were “black-listed”, some of which showed significant business
potential._

By definition, a business that can suffer "irreparable harm" because of
another entity's actions which are outside their control does _not_ show
"siginificant business potential".

~~~
ehutch79
wait. so these ARE search engines themselves? doesnt that mean they're
competition? i'm sure google can argue that no law could possibly require
preferential treatment of competitors? or something like that?

~~~
anamax
> i'm sure google can argue that no law could possibly require preferential
> treatment of competitors?

Google can argue that point, but it's not true.

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yanw
These are the same people who are suing Google all over the place.

The ridiculous notion of 'SEO by lawyer' should go away (very quickly!) and
Google should establish that it's not a traffic pump and isn't obligated to
send anyone traffic.

