andrea99 - 4:44 pm on Sep 1, 2005 (gmt 0)

Fair? Who decides what's fair? Google does. It's their search engine.

No, actually the searching public decides. If and when the public's opinion becomes that Google is unfair, Google will change or die (I use the term 'die' loosely, 2nd place would be a kind of death).

There is great inertia and forgiveness in public opinion, but it is the final arbiter of these things. The public's opinion is guided by opinion leaders in the search community and the wider media.

Strong early support by the Slashdot crowd and similar communities gave Google its start. If a rival to Google were to emerge I would expect to see it there first. But it could emerge elsewhere...