From Chinese Press

A question of online neutrality

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-26 08:27

More and more people have started believing in the notion of "online search neutrality" because it is expected to maintain impartiality in online search results, says an article in China Youth Daily. Excerpts:

People think "online search neutrality" is a good idea because it rules out interests, but Google vice-president Marissa Mayer disagrees. The first heavyweight to oppose the idea says search neutrality is at odds with mathematical measures conducted by search engines to decide which information is the best, and thus could threaten innovation, competition and finally disable you from finding information.

What she doesn't say is that even the process of deciding which information is best for an Internet browser can only be carried out on a technical basis, and this "best decision" should not free of legal and moral standards.

A recent case exposed how a search engine violates laws. Baidu, China's search engine giant, sold the first few pages of its search results through a bidding, some of which were paid for by makers of fake medicine. This kind of "best decision making" has nothing to do with innovation or equal competition that Mayer argues.

Search engines have no right to decide which information should be the best to browsers.

 

(China Daily 07/26/2010 page9)