Not many understand antitrust, nor do they embrace it

Kinderstart sues Google over lower page ranking

Reuters
Saturday, March 18, 2006; 9:09 PM

SAN FRANCISCO, March 18 (Reuters) - A parental advice Internet site has sued Google Inc. , charging it unfairly deprived the company of customers by downgrading its search-result ranking without reason or warning.

The civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, California, on Friday by KinderStart.com seeks financial damages along with information on how Google ranks Internet sites when users conduct a Web-based search.

Google could not immediately be reached for comment but the company aggressively defends the secrecy of its patented search ranking system and asserts its right to adapt it to give customers what it determines to be the best results.

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After I briefly looked into this, I found that KinderStart.com does not have a very strong case; more specifically, it appears that Google was pretty informative about reasons why KinderStart.com was removed from Google's index, though there was no direct communication between KinderStart.com and Google (up to now). Those who work in the sub industry of search (engine) industry like Google called "Search Engine Optimization" industry discussed about this on various discussion boards, and I checked these discussions:

Kinderstart files suit against google
Google sued over rankings (penalty)

I agree that KinderStart.com does not have a very strong case in this particular case, but I was (unpleasantly) surprised that many people think that Google can do whatever they want using their data. 90% of internet users use search engines like Google to look for a web page when they get on the internet. It is estimated that Google has roughly 50% of market share in the internet search. This means that Google has enough power to fundamentally change the behavior of those who participate in commercial activities that Google plays a major part in. Subsequently, it is theoretically possible that Google creates a trust to take advantage. This is illegal in all developed countries, as it is an anticompetitive behavior. It is completely untrue that Google can (legally) do whatever they want to do.

Anticompetitive behavior is hurting every business sector; anticompetitive behavior is not only hurting businesses, but it is hurting consumers. Businesses and consumers need to understand this.