This is a tough question because Google does have by far the best search product. The problems arise when they have such a dominant market position that they co

This is a tough question because Google does have by far the best search product. The problems arise when they have such a dominant market position that they control virtually all search traffic. At that point, they can do anything they want to publishers because they don't have any recourse. The only option is to beg for Google's favor. This is a bad thing, because it allows Google to leech the value out of search traffic that is created by publishers. Jakob Nielsen wrote an article explaining this: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html The web gets hurt when Google sucks so much value out of search traffic that publishers don't have the economic incentive to keep adding value to the web.