"Search Engines Owed Same Free Speech Protections As CNN, Claims Google Report
Google's dropped the argument that it's neutral and has embraced the claim to free speech."
"In a new report commissioned by Google that examines the scope of free speech that should be permitted to search engines, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who authored the report, says that search engines should be regarded as media companies, akin to how CNN and the New York Times are media companies. In that respect, the report asserts that search engines like Google and Bing have a protected right to pick and choose what appears in their search rankings."
"Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users.
In practice, this would mean Google has the right to punt sites like Yelp, which has complained that Google is a monopolist, to the search equivalent of Siberia if it decided that was best for users (Yelp now comes up second in a search for “restaurant review”).
Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://www.webpronews.com/search-engines-owed-same-free-speech-protections-as-cnn-claims-google-report-2012-05
"Professor Makes the Case That Google Is a Publisher"
"There are good reasons for Google to want to be considered a mere connector; like other Internet companies, it can beg off responsibility for what is transmitted by its users. That is the useful stance when it comes to rebutting claims of copyright infringement or libel.
But when the issue is anticompetitive behavior — a charge made by rivals and some businesses — Google has lately been emphasizing that it sees itself as a publisher, and it is appealing for different kinds of protections, in the realm of free speech.
How Google has decided to say this is almost as interesting as what is being said. The company hired Eugene Volokh, an influential conservative blogger and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, to write a paper last month. In it, he argues that Google search results are protected speech.
Mr. Volokh freely acknowledges that the paper, posted on his blog and shared widely on the Internet, is not academic scholarship but a piece of advocacy, written in his capacity as an academic affiliate at a Los Angeles law firm, Mayer Brown. It is something that would typically be prepared if Google were facing a trial on these issues.
There is no such court case at the moment that Mr. Volokh is pointing toward with his paper, but Google has become a target over how it runs its search engine. Competitors and some companies say Google’s search algorithms favor services owned by Google, a charge Google denies, but one that has drawn the attention of regulators in Europe and the United States."
Source of Above Quote
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/business/media/eugene-volokh-ucla-professor-makes-a-case-for-google-as-publisher.html?_r=1
"Professor Eugene Volokh makes the case that Google is a publisher"
"Is Google search an intermediary like the phone company - simply connecting people with the information they seek? Or is Google search a publisher, like a newspaper, which provides only the information that it sees fit and is protected by the First Amendment?"
Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-21/news/31801147_1_google-search-search-results-eric-e-schmidt
"The findings - commissioned by Google and produced by law professor Eugene Volokh - essentially suggest that those complaining about Google favoring its own products in search results do not have a valid argument.
Google has denied such favoritism, but "even if it is assumed that Google engages or plans to engage in such prioritizing, that prioritizing would constitute the legitimate exercise of Google's First Amendment right to decide how to present information in its speech to its users," Volokh wrote in the report.
Volokh likened search results from Google and others to newspapers or magazines, which make editorial decisions about which content to cover or place in prominent positions. Though on a much larger scale, Google also has this right and government regulations that might require the search giant to show certain results would be a violation of its First Amendment right to free speech, the report said.
"Search engines are free to include and highlight their own listings of (for example) local review pages even though Yelp might prefer that the search engines instead rank Yelp's information higher.""
Source of Above Quote
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404247,00.asp
"Google Preps for Possible FTC Fight"
"Amid signs the Federal Trade Commission is ratcheting up its investigation of Google Inc., the search giant is returning fire by stepping up a public relations campaign to make the case that its activities don't violate antitrust law.
The company provided financial backing for two papers released this week in which third-party lawyers and economists laid out a legal defense of Google's business practices and blasted possible action by the FTC. The essays—one published on a popular legal blog, the other posted on a social-science research site—provide a likely preview of the company's legal strategy should the agency choose to ..."
Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304543904577396483337361246.html
"Just as the New York Times can decide “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.
That’s the conclusion of a prominent First Amendment scholar commissioned by Google to make the case that the government can’t tell search engines how to design their results.
A Free Speech Right?
According to the report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh: “Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo! Search and other search engine companies are rightly seen as media enterprises, much as the New York Times Company or CNN are media enterprises” and deserve the same protections. It adds that search engines have the same freedom to choose a set of links as do news aggregators like the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post.
Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users."
Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/09/search-engines-have-same-speech-rights-as-new-york-times-says-google-report/
"Do Google and other search engines have a constitutional right to control their own search results?
The answer is yes, at least in the opinion of UCLA law professor and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh."
Source of Above Quote and Full Article
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57430717-93/google-report-says-search-results-protected-by-first-amendment/
"Search Engine Results Protected by First Amendment"
"Although Google has been the subject of multiple antitrust investigations related to how they arrange search results and rank Web sites, a new 27-page report suggests that Google should be offered the same First Amendment rights as a newspaper. The report, which was commissioned by Google, makes a strong case that search engines are protected by the First Amendment and that the government cannot attempt to control the search results in any way."To Read Full Report Click Below
