[smokeyj]

We live in a world full of many pressing issues. My google results page is not one of them. What I'd like to know is - how did these regulators prioritize their backlog in such a way that this is the current priority - and everything else is a lesser one. That process is what's broken. Not Google.

[cscurmudgeon]

This is exactly the same argument as "Why go to space when there are starving children in Africa."

[jessaustin]

The people who distribute food aid are generally not mostly astronauts. Europe's economy is not without serious problems, yet the same people who would otherwise be charged with considering those instead busy themselves with critical study of search results. That doesn't seem to be exactly the same situation.

[cscurmudgeon]

The people responsible for the economy are not the same people responsible for regulations.

Did you ever think one of the reasons for the problems could be big companies acting unethically?

[smokeyj]

What's your point. That space exploration is in principle a good investment? That investing in lowing the cost of living is a bad investment? You're a little sparse on details.

[kuschku]

Well, they're also researching other stuff, but Google, for example, saying "you can't have yahoo ads on a page with AdSense ads or YouTube embeds" was kinda problematic.

Luckily, that stopped a few years ago, yet it was still very crazy.

[Sylos]

What dumb argument is that? If Google is allowed to just display whatever the fuck they want, then they could easily obliterate the economy of whatever country you reside in. Yes, as long as they don't abuse that, there is no problem, but that's not a reason to not have a law.

[smokeyj]

Whoa dude. Take a breath and maybe explain your argument in a little more detail?

If Google is allowed to display whatever they want they can obliterate your local economy? Details please..

[Sylos]

Not sure what you need an explanation for. By now a quite significant portion of internet traffic is delegated over Google and a quite significant portion of commerce depends on the internet.

Google could decide to suddenly stop displaying links to the webpages of companies in your country, which would severely damage your country's export.

They could filter the search results to only display negative search results for things in your country or even add in some faked articles bubbling up into the Google top results about some contagious disease in your country to wreck tourism.

Other great articles to fake would be about some financial instabilities in your country. Traders have to react quickly when something like that crops up, and so they would probably already try to sell assets in your country before anything is even vaguely confirmed.

Chances are that even some TV shows, newspapers etc. will report about it and give it more credibility, as even journalists today also often just google things and then report whatever sounds somewhat plausible, especially when it sounds like a good story.

[smokeyj]

> Google could decide to suddenly stop displaying links to the webpages of companies in your country

This is the crux of your argument. Google already pulled out of China because of prohibitive regulation which makes my point exactly. The more regulation that's added to make search "safe" the greater the barrier to entry for new competitors is. This isn't even theoretical free-market mumbo jumbo, this is simply historically evident.

> They could filter the search results to only display negative search results

Sure. If I search for xbox, they could decide to only show me nintendo results. But the result sucks and I'll move to a different search engine. The market is wonderfully magical that way. Consumers don't need Microsoft's benevolent lobbyists to protect us from the dangers of Google.

So my point is, the motivation for these regulators action is not from the interest of the general public - but more like the well financed interests of market competitors who can't win by providing better results.

[ninedays]

I have to agree with Sylos that this is a dumb argument.