Can't Find Foundem - Conspiracy?

Saw an interesting Op-Ed piece written by Adam Raff, founder of Foundem, a vertical search firm in the UK that provides comparative pricing on electronics, airline tickets, home & garden items, etc. The crux of Raff's opinion piece is that online search provided by behemoths like Bing, Yahoo -- but in this case, in particular Google -- need to have oversight. He is so passionate about this need for adult supervision that he has dubbed his quest "Search Neutrality" and is hoping to generate enough interest so that the discussion on "Net Neutrality" will incorporate search as well.

Net Neutrality, is a principle whose proponents include activists, consumer groups, many technology application providers (including Google) who are pushing for a law that gives all people equal access to the Internet broadband on a first come first-served basis. SaveTheInternet.com states that

Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from blocking, speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.

Opponents say the whole issue is much ado about nothing and could prevent Internet Service Providers (ISPs) from taking needed action during denial-of-service (DOS) attacks,  The Net Neutrality movement is being addressed country by country, and in the US, the FCC is open to comments at this time. And besides, say a cadre of net engineers, the Internet isn't perfect anyway, and this law may prevent a new one from emerging.

Translated, the fear is that without the law ISPs could possibly discriminate against some websites by slowing packets to and from the server. While opponents fear that legislators could never possibly create a law that would be fluid enough to yield to innovation.

Back to Raff, his own site's treatment by Google, which is detailed here, has made him aware of the phenomenal power search engines hold over Commerce. Raff believes he has evidence that Google did penalize Foundem -- simply for being a vertical search company. He further contends that Google's own products are given preferential treatment at the top of search results. With 90 percent of the search market, Raff argues, Google needs oversight.

It is an interesting arguement -- more so, because of the ubiquity and popularity of search. We all have an expectation of being indexed by search engines -- for free. Conversely, do we have an expectation when we search, that all information that is relevant -- is being presented to us? Are these anti-trust issues? Or communication ones? Does Google et al have the right to block or discriminate certain sites -- when no money is changing hands?

It is quite possible that by virtue of its supremacy, Google has put itself in a situation where, like Microsoft before it, it becomes a victim of its own success -- and people just don't trust it.