Search neutrality? How Google became a "neutrality" target

If Internet service providers should be subject to "network neutrality," should companies like Google be subject to "search neutrality"? The term "search neutrality" now fills the FCC filings of companies like Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and AT&T, all of whom see no reason why their businesses should be picked out for regulatory scrutiny while Google goes about its business unmolested.

Back in 2008, the University of Minnesota's Andrew Odlyzko wrote an important piece called "Network neutrality, search neutrality, and the never-ending conflict between efficiency and fairness in markets," which he later updated in 2009. The piece took a big picture look at the debate over net neutrality, arguing that the ideas behind it were really part of a policy debate "going back for centuries." He and Weiser agreed: the debate reflected a fundamental tension between "efficiency and fairness in markets, a tension that has never been completely resolved." Odlyzko is a hugely respected voice on the economics of networks and on the growth of Internet traffic, so his words carried particular weight: "Should net neutrality or some similar set of rules come to dominate (either because of market forces, or through regulation), attention would likely turn to other parts of the economy that might be perceived as choke points for social, economic, and political activities. If Net search becomes as important as the Google stock price seems to imply, for example, it might be the focal point for such concerns... It is possible to argue that the best outcome might be to have Google defeat AT&T in the battle over net neutrality, but then (and likely in any case) society might have to get ready to regulate Google!"