mantucket - 4:28 pm on Jun 6, 2010 (gmt 0)

backdraft - I think the moderators want to direct meta-google discussions to another thread, how about starting one on monopoly-related issues ie whether companies who provide a public service must also be accountable about disrupting commerce, etc. FWIW, my small biz sounds like about the same size as yours. Smaller enterprises like us cannot afford to inve$t months of time diagnosing the workings of one traffic channel... large companies can. So the secretive policies favor larger companies - what we need is 'search neutrality'.

Thing is, if google (or any search company) were required to at least respond/defend/explain a major disruption to impacted business, it would be a financial liability and would cut into their profits.
Yet smaller search companies, which need to compete, do provide more transparency. Microsoft always flags sites which it penalizes, for example.