No to Government Regulated Search

Considering what a lousy job the government (any level, any entity) does with the things we absolutely have to entrust to their care, I’m amazed we would even consider handing them something else to regulate, but that’s precisely what some people seem to be doing.

The complaint is that Google (mostly) along with a few other players pretty much controls search. But there is nothing preventing others from getting involved and organizing information in different ways. In fact, as the article itself points out, social networks are beginning to play that role to some extent, but there’s nothing preventing a new player from doing the job better than Google does, provided they can figure out how. If not, Google deserves its position.

Individual responsibility seems to be easy to ignore these days. If you don’t find the right information in the top 10, look further. Nobody requires the internet searcher to settle for the first option they find. The responsible researcher will study each web site and evaluate sources before using information. One shouldn’t depend on the search engine to do that work in any case.