Bill Thompson at BBC World Service asks the question Is Google good for you?
He talks about how Google has become more commercial, and claims that we are all suffering because of it. He actually goes as far as suggesting that search is now so important that it should be regulated, just like telecom and broadcasters are in the UK.
While I will admit I don’t mind regulation of several areas, and that I am missing the regulation of power companies that we enjoyed in Norway until last year, I don’t think the solution in this case is regulation.
As Google has so skillfully showed us, emerging from nothing only a few years ago, if a service is good enough it will attract users.
Google has showed respect for its users by avoiding paid placement in its search engine. Unlike Overture and Yahoo – its largest competitors today.
The way to get Google off of its “throne” as the number one search engine is not to regulate, but for someone to come up with a search engine as user friendly and powerful as Google or preferably a lot better. Until that happens Google will remain the prominent search engine on the web.
BTW: Bill is promising to diversify his searches in the year to come. Let me suggest taking a look at Alltheweb.com, which in my humble opinion is one of Googles most worthy competitors today.
[Via JD on MX]