Net neutrality comes back to haunt Google
Google has become the main advocate in Washington for a set of regulations to prevent internet service providers favouring particular companies traffic. However, that campaign, over what is known as net neutrality, has handed a gift to its own detractors. This year, search neutrality has become the rallying cry of activists who believe that Google has too much power to decide which internet sites are granted the attention that comes with a high search ranking, and which are consigned to outer darkness.
For now, there is no indication that Washington is interested in creating a regime to govern the search business, and the campaign has served mainly as a way for Googles detractors to try to push it on to the defensive over other issues. But antitrust regulators have already begun to look this year into how the companys core search ranking system works. The announcement this month of the $700m acquisition of ITA Software, a travel technology company, is now set to extend that further.
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