Napoleon - 12:49 pm on Mar 5, 2002 (gmt 0)

Interesting viewpoint Gethan, but TOTALLY at odds with mine for a whole stack of reasons.

Amongst them:

a) The web is media, as is TV... so it is not exactly moving into a radical new area.

b) If search engines are no longer providing a public service, then it is perfectly right and proper that a public organ does it for them.

Surely it is not in doubt that the vast majority of engines are NOT driven primarily on the quality of returns... they are driven by profit and generally are very happy to reduce the quality of their returns to this end (with a few honorable exceptions). Look at the spread of Goverture as a prime example!

If commerce cannot deliver fair unbiased returns, then the Beeb has every right to do so, as a public service.

The main impact of this may actually be somewhat indirect... putting pressure on other engines to keep their returns clean and less commercial. Now that really would be a result.

As far as I am concerned, also as a licence payer, well done BBC. Go for it!