Report: Microsoft worried about search neutrality

Microsoft may be the latest company to raise concerns about a search engine (read: Google) acting as an Internet gatekeeper, according to comments published last week on the Seattle website PubliCola.

During a Q&A session, Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, had some edgy remarks about the dangers of search, according to a report by Josh Feit. He sounded a lot more like an Internet service provider representative than a lawyer for a search company.

Here's what the report says: "'The real threat to controlling content, Smith said, wasn’t Orwellian ISPs, 'it’s search' he announced, referring to search engines that direct traffic on the web. Was Smith’s Google envy showing? 'Where is the biggest lack of competition?' he asked. 'Search!'"

Search neutrality is the notion that search engines should not favor certain content, including their own. Internet service providers have charged in the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality proceeding that if they are to be regulated in a way that prevents them from favoring certain Internet content, then search engines should, too.

This New York Times op-ed in December helped put search neutrality concerns on the map, but Google backers are often roundly dismissive that the issue constitutes a substantive concern. Google proponents have contended that search neutrality is an opportunistic complaint by Internet service providers rather than a meaningful policy question. But couldn't it be both? 

A Google policy counsel wrote this post in October on the company's commitment to fair competition, noting that the company uses an algorithm to decide where results fall in its listings. 

In October, when the FCC moved to make net neutrality rules, Kim Hart examined the possibility that Microsoft had moved to the center in the open Internet debate, no longer supporting the broadest consumer protections against infringements by Internet service providers. Smith acknowledged as much during the Q&A, according to PubliCola's report.