net neutrality in all its forms

seemingly in response to the network neutrality debate and all the hubbub that surrounds it, south carolina senator jim demint proposes neutrality in search engine results.

The latest amendment to this year's doorstop telecomms legislation, S.2686, was tabled by Jim DeMint (R), and targets search sites which "prioritize or give preferential or discriminatory treatment in the methodology used to determine Internet-search results based on an advertising or other commercial agreement with a third party".

of course, content providers like google and yahoo support traditional 'network neutrality' while, at the same time, giving preferences based on payments.

Who could object to such a proposal? Certainly not Google and Yahoo!, which having gone to Washington DC to argue against network discrimination, can't really be seen fighting for the right to discriminate on a selective basis.
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The three most popular search engines, Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN are principally advertising resellers. So the more pages bearing their advertisements they return, the more likely they are to prosper. It's a commercial conflict of interest that none of the big three have yet to address, let alone resolve.

while i understand the concept of 'network neutrality', i'm not a big fan of government regulating private enterprise (even if there's a monopolistic nature). broadband providers can't 'cripple' service otherwise they would risk losing their customers. so in a sense, it could be self-regulating