Wilburforce - 11:56 pm on Jan 4, 2013 (gmt 0)

And, now it's official ... They don't owe anyone

in America

anything

(same article):

"The decision may set up a conflict with officials in Europe, where Google is battling similar concerns."

On their current/recent (and not-so-recent) key term/short phrase results they don't serve me as a searcher, or as a recipient of searches.

On longer phrases they are still a lot better than the competition (a lot of posters here have commented on long-tail traffic): Bing's results treat a long phrase like multiple separate terms.

It doesn't actually matter whether they owe anyone anything. A better engine will displace them (and one will come, eventually), but until one does our marketing choices for new business are limited. It is all very well to say we must not rely on organic placement, but if your market is the general public not many new customers will find you by other means, however much you spend.