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"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 restrain

by 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.

by qeorge 17y ago

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.