> it was easy to appear agnostic about search results

As Techdirt often says, this is a stupid argument. Search results, by definition are biased. You're asking Google's opinion on what is most relevant and useful. The whole purpose of search is to get biased results, otherwise you'd end up with "60 million pages containing your query 'liver'. Displaying 1 of 10, sorted number of times 'liver' is mentioned."

> Another would be to give some government commission the power to look at those tweaks.

This is probably a good move. Why don't we give government regulators oversight of google, because as we've seen with the SEC and the Minerals Management Service, government regulation usually prevents fraudulent or dangerous business action.

The government has done good things - i'm lookin' at you, seatbelts and civil rights - but those were typically grass-roots movements and not blue-ribbon commissions.

I would way rather have google blindly manipulate their own search data for personal profit than have to deal with the likely outcome of governmental meddling in said data.

The NY Times editorial section is getting fairly popular; the case is building for some sort of oversight.

Remind me - does the NYT have the sort of oversight that it thinks that Google should have?

The NYT editorial doesn't reference this, but recently the French government declared that Google was a monopoly and went on to prohibit Google from banning a French company based on Google's sense of what was moral and what was immoral.

See http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/02/business/02norris.html

Having determined Google has a monopoly, the agency ordered the company to resume offering its services to a French company called Navx, which sells a database to let drivers know where the French police are likely to have radar traps in operation.

Google found Navx’s business distasteful - it is arguable that Navx’s customers use the product to help them act illegally with impunity - so last November, Google stopped doing business with Navx. As a result, those using search terms like "radar trap" in French could no longer learn of the company’s product and, a few clicks later, buy it.

Navx complained to the French government, saying its sales had plunged and that as a result it was facing problems raising capital. On Wednesday, the authority ordered Google to resume selling ads to Navx and to produce clear policies on when advertisers would be turned down.

"Discriminatory practices may harm competition," the authority said, "when customers of a company holding a dominant position find themselves disadvantaged in the competition on their own market."

Wait, so the French government ruled against Google, in favor of a company whose mission is to help evade the government. This is too rich.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." — attributed to Voltaire (a Frenchman, natch)

Or more prosaically, the French decided that advertising neutrality is more important than cracking down on speeding.

Wait until the link-farms hear about this.

Yeah, let's let the Government decide what the number one result for "unofficial lady gaga fan page" should be - that's got to be in the commerce clause somewhere.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and there's not a much more extraordinary claim than that of government oversight with minimal impact.

The editorial proposes to involve some government oversight commission or editorial board, even while acknowledging that government involvement could very well be a noose around Google's neck as a company whose primary value is derived from responsiveness.

My only criticism of this article is the vagueness about Orbitz NOT being part of ITA:

"purchase of the flight information software firm ITA, with which it plans to enter the online travel search market occupied by Expedia, Orbitz, Bing and others."

Orbitz isn't part of ITA. They use ITA, as does Bing and several others, but they aren't part of them. They could potentially switch to SABRE or something else, if Google actually went so far as to pull the rug out from under them.

In fact, Google has stated they intend to maintain ITA's relationships with companies such as Orbitz and Bing: "Google will honor all existing agreements, and we're also enthusiastic about adding new partners." (http://www.google.com/press/ita/comp.html)

Ya, I read that as well. But even if they changed their mind (which is extremely unlikely. Google always seems willing to compete), it wouldn't be the end of all those sites, though it would be a major setback.

Thanks for setting me straight on this.

No problem. The air travel sector is quite complex, so I understand the confusion. I interned at ITA for a summer a few years ago, so I have a little first hand experience with it.

Why shouldn't Google favor its own? I would certainly rather that my customers used my other services, than they used my competitors.

Just like Microsoft preferred that it's customers used internet explorer over Netscape's offering

Not even close to a valid comparison. When has Google gone to the lengths that Microsoft did to tie services/applications together? What indication have they shown that, even given the opportunity, they would sabotage another vendor for market share?

Not a particularity strong argument there, YouTube has loads upon loads of videos so statistically you will encounter them in search results, as for maps Google can't really guarantee the reliability or accuracy of mapping services they don't operate.