A Threat to Web Search?
by jorge — No Comments »In this article, John C. Dvorak talks about search neutrality. He points out that the task of indexing the web is so daunting that only a few very large companies (Google, Yahoo, MSN) can afford to do it. So far, search results are neutral. But what about tomorrow, he asks; when does corruption sneak into the equation? Elections could be influenced by little tweaks to the search results. And it wouldn’t be even illegal!
Mainstream news media immediately comes to mind. They skew their news coverage. They are owned by powerful media moguls with political agendas. Most of the population watches only few large networks, so they are effectively in control of the public opinion. And it is all legal.
Yet even while these networks do have political agendas, they are spread throughout the spectrum. It is unlikely that they will merge into one all-controlling information monster. If you don’t trust Fox, you can watch CNN, or the BBC. Or all of them, and form your own opinion. Better yet, you can add to the mix smaller networks, local online newspapers, blogs and discussion forums. With online news aggregators, you no longer need to spend all morning reading all major newspapers.
I believe the same applies to the search world. It’s unlikely that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, AskJeeves and AOL Search will all merge into one giant entity that decides what parts of the web you are allowed to see. If you don’t trust one, just go search somewhere else, or use a meta-searcher like Dogpile, Vivisimo, Kartoo, Mamma or SurfWax. Better yet, add specialty and local search engines to the mix, along with usenet, del.icio.us, technorati, digg, reddit, and any number of information aggregators that are and most likely will remain out of reach for wannabe election riggers.
In both cases, the myriad of online information sources, be it news or search results (the distinction blurs) keeps the big players in check. If a blogger can topple a mainstream news anchor who didn’t bother to check his sources, small independent topical search engines can be trusted to keep the big ones honest.
