6 ms·

This sounds like a classic antitrust issue. Definition of antitrust from Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act: A Section 1 violation has three elements: 1.

This sounds like a classic antitrust issue. Definition of antitrust from Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act: A Section 1 violation has three elements: 1. An agreement 2. which unreasonably restrains competition 3. and which affects interstate commerce. If Microsoft were to make such an agreement with Fox where they would pay them to be delisted from Google, it would be an agreement which unreasonably restrains competition and it affects interstate commerce. (As would anything online which is a revenue source) I surely wouldn't put evil past Microsoft, but I doubt they would actually be so stupid, especially given their prior too-close-for-comfort experiences with federal antitrust law.

qeorge 17y ago
"If Microsoft were to make such an agreement with Fox where they would pay them to be delisted from Google, it would be an agreement which unreasonably restrains competition and it affects interstate commerce. (As would anything online which is a revenue source)" This is the part I don't agree with. I fail to see how not having the FIM properties in a search engines' index precludes Google (or anyone else) from competition. SAA cases are hard to prove. This wouldn't cut it IMHO (IANAL though, so who knows). Anecdotally, Google not having MySpace, Fox News, and the other FIM properties in their index would actually be a selling point to me. IMHO, Microsoft is choosing the wrong content to lock down (although I do see the inherent "First they came for Fox News" problem here).
- vaporstun 17y ago
  While you're right that SAA cases are notoriously hard to prove, I simply don't think that Microsoft would even attempt something touching anything in that space given their history. And the act was initially created in order to level the playing field to encourage fair competition. It does not seem farfetched for someone to argue that by using its immense resources to sweep Fox out of Google's index, Microsoft is engaging in unfair competition. This is the specific type of anticompetitive action the Sherman Act was enacted to prevent. While it's true this probably wouldn't go anywhere without them getting to a point where they have a majority market share in search, this is a slippery slope and one I still think they won't go down, even if the viability of an antitrust case is low. Can't argue that getting everything Fox off of Google would be fantastic, but the greater trend of fighting financially for search indexing would snowball into a huge mess. Imagine if you had to go to Bing to find stuff on Fox, Google for CNN, and Yahoo for BBC? The internet as we know it would start to fall apart.
dagw 17y ago
I disagree. As a web site owner I should be able to decide who does and doesn't index my site. If I don't want Google (or MS or Yahoo) to index my site that is my prerogative and I'd be mightily annoyed if those sites ignored my robot.txt file. Or from a different perspective, if I have to sign a contract with one publisher that only they are allowed to publish an article I wrote, would that be an antitrust violation? Personally I fail to see why people are so upset. If it's my content, I should get to decide who indexes it. If one company demands exclusive access to my content for me to get paid, then it is fully within my right to grant them that exclusive access.
- vaporstun 17y ago
  I agree that as a site owner you have the right to who has the ability to search your site, but when you start to have someone like Microsoft going around paying people to alter their robots.txt file to keep Google's crawlers out of it, I think you've stepped into distinctly different territory from a right of privacy. Furthermore, I would make the argument that this is much different from signing a contract with a publisher. On the contrary, I would say this is akin to a movie theater paying a movie studio to keep a movie out of its competitor's theaters. This exact scenario was ruled to be a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pict...) This sounds to me as though it's the exact type of anticompetitive action things like the Sherman Antitrust Act were meant to prevent. *Edit, added link to Paramount case
  - dagw 17y ago
    The Paramount case was more about vertical integration than exclusive deals. Since Microsoft and News Corp are two completely separate companies I don't really see how that case applies. Had Microsoft been making msnbc content exclusively available through bing then there might have been a case, but making a deal with News Corp shouldn't step on any of the ground covered by the Paramount case.

qeorge 17y ago

"If Microsoft were to make such an agreement with Fox where they would pay them to be delisted from Google, it would be an agreement which unreasonably restrains competition and it affects interstate commerce. (As would anything online which is a revenue source)" This is the part I don't agree with. I fail to see how not having the FIM properties in a search engines' index precludes Google (or anyone else) from competition. SAA cases are hard to prove. This wouldn't cut it IMHO (IANAL though, so who knows). Anecdotally, Google not having MySpace, Fox News, and the other FIM properties in their index would actually be a selling point to me. IMHO, Microsoft is choosing the wrong content to lock down (although I do see the inherent "First they came for Fox News" problem here).

vaporstun 17y ago
While you're right that SAA cases are notoriously hard to prove, I simply don't think that Microsoft would even attempt something touching anything in that space given their history. And the act was initially created in order to level the playing field to encourage fair competition. It does not seem farfetched for someone to argue that by using its immense resources to sweep Fox out of Google's index, Microsoft is engaging in unfair competition. This is the specific type of anticompetitive action the Sherman Act was enacted to prevent. While it's true this probably wouldn't go anywhere without them getting to a point where they have a majority market share in search, this is a slippery slope and one I still think they won't go down, even if the viability of an antitrust case is low. Can't argue that getting everything Fox off of Google would be fantastic, but the greater trend of fighting financially for search indexing would snowball into a huge mess. Imagine if you had to go to Bing to find stuff on Fox, Google for CNN, and Yahoo for BBC? The internet as we know it would start to fall apart.

dagw 17y ago

I disagree. As a web site owner I should be able to decide who does and doesn't index my site. If I don't want Google (or MS or Yahoo) to index my site that is my prerogative and I'd be mightily annoyed if those sites ignored my robot.txt file. Or from a different perspective, if I have to sign a contract with one publisher that only they are allowed to publish an article I wrote, would that be an antitrust violation? Personally I fail to see why people are so upset. If it's my content, I should get to decide who indexes it. If one company demands exclusive access to my content for me to get paid, then it is fully within my right to grant them that exclusive access.

vaporstun 17y ago
I agree that as a site owner you have the right to who has the ability to search your site, but when you start to have someone like Microsoft going around paying people to alter their robots.txt file to keep Google's crawlers out of it, I think you've stepped into distinctly different territory from a right of privacy. Furthermore, I would make the argument that this is much different from signing a contract with a publisher. On the contrary, I would say this is akin to a movie theater paying a movie studio to keep a movie out of its competitor's theaters. This exact scenario was ruled to be a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pictures,_Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_Pict...) This sounds to me as though it's the exact type of anticompetitive action things like the Sherman Antitrust Act were meant to prevent. *Edit, added link to Paramount case
- dagw 17y ago
  The Paramount case was more about vertical integration than exclusive deals. Since Microsoft and News Corp are two completely separate companies I don't really see how that case applies. Had Microsoft been making msnbc content exclusively available through bing then there might have been a case, but making a deal with News Corp shouldn't step on any of the ground covered by the Paramount case.