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Regulating Search?
The debate is on. Should search engines be regulated?
Yale Law School hosted a conference yesterday on the subject (Regulating Search: A Symposium on Search Engines, Law, and Public Policy). Several of the papers presented can be found at the bottom of the Symposium’s web page — just follow the link to the Position Papers on the right side.
I was sceptical about the topic and the DoJ paper was just about how far the Microsoft case suggests approaches to antitrust regulation of dynamic sectors.
But some interesting questions for Slaw to consider were raised by the second panel: what do we think?
# Do search engines have First Amendment or Takings Clause rights that would preclude certain forms of regulation?
# Should government regulators intervene to make sure that the search market stays competitive?
# Should search engines be subjected to an informational equivalent of common-carrier rules?
# Is there an obligation to provide evenhanded listing of sites? Evenhanded listing of results?
# Should search engines be required to disclose their commercial sponsors? Their algorithms?
# Should consumers be protected from bad search results? From having their search results malevolently altered?
# Does the recent spate of security breaches at database companies portend similar trouble for search companies?
# Should search engines be afraid of anti-spyware legislation? Of anti-spam legislation?