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Comment by baryphonic

7 months ago

This is an interesting theory. Is there evidence that it's happening? Is Big SEO unreasonably effective at lobbying the Justice Department?

2 comments

baryphonic

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freeone3000  7 months ago

It’s definitely a concern where I work (not Google). Deranking anybody who happens to share a vertical we’re in is colorable as an anticompetitive action[0], and due to our dominance in another sector (not search), effectively any anticompetitive action anywhere is a no-go. And since we don’t have time to review whether a particular competitor also competes in one of our verticles and run everything by legal, nothing gets de-ranked manually.

0: for context, us doj does not take antitrust action against companies simply for market dominance; it requires market dominance plus an anticompetitive action. However, they don’t like monopolies, so effectively any pretext can be used — see the apple lawsuit or the 90s ms lawsuits for how little it takes.