You know where everything is? Then you’re in charge. That’s the way it always goes and that’s why companies get so animated about Internet Search. Because the Internet is everything and, for the time being at least, Google seems to know where it all is. Want to know how important Search is? (Besides the fact that we’re capitalizing it?) It sure does make strange bedfellows: Microsoft, Nokia, Oracle, Expedia, TripAdvisor, Hotwire, Kayak and others have all teamed up to make sure Google doesn’t own Search outright. Together these companies make up a group called FairSearch.org, which is essentially an anti-Google lobbying operation. (They publish no complaints about the Dogpile.com search engine.)
FairSearch.org states that it believes in “two essential principles”– transparency and innovation. (You are forgiven if you just rubbed Microsoft and transparency together and made yourself chuckle. ) “Based on growing evidence that Google is abusing its search monopoly to thwart competition,” the site claims, “we believe policymakers must act now to protect competition, transparency and innovation in online search.” Google, for its part, seems to believe that innovation is exactly how it keeps evading Microsoft’s Bings and arrows of outrageous fortune. We were impressed, anyway, that typing “fair search” into Google.com gave back as its #1 result fairsearch.org, its chief antagonist.