Google Steps Over the Line
Cited: CNNÂ
Google is just about as big as it gets in any market, and bigger than everyone else by a far cry in the search engine business. But now they are poised to get even bigger and their next giant step could land them afoul of anti-trust laws that try to govern the ever changing landscape of high tech information gathering. Google’s new feature is called Google Search, plus Your World, which guides the search results to each user by tapping into Google’s social network, Google+. So, your search results will now contain Google+ posts and profiles. One issue with the new iteration of the old Google search is that you won’t find any Facebook, or Twitter posts or profiles when you do your search and lawyers familiar with Internet anti-trust law say that Google could find itself in court over their new search tool.
For its part, Google says that the allegations are completely without merit and that their Good Search+ tool benefits its customers and that Google is under no obligation to promote anyone else’s services. Unfortunately for Google, they may just be too big for their own good because while it is indeed true that even if you have a monopoly you don’t have to go out of your way to help the budding competition, when you are as big a Google you are in fact obliged to make sure that the market is fair for everyone operating in your space. A small price or a big price to pay for being the Goliath? Only time and the courts will tell.
Google can also point to the limitations placed on them by Facebook and Twitter in trying to level the playing field, neither of which allow Google to crawl through their sites for information that can be used in Google searches.
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My take:
I’m not sure I understand any of it to be perfectly honest. Nor do I know how or if it will ever effect me or my life. I guess if Google is so big and makes so much money from what they do, other search engines should follow suit or get out of the way.
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