This claim is brought under the rubric of antitrust but the impetus behind it is found in the nascent movement seeking to subject search engines to principles of so-called "search neutrality."<p>Search neutrality is explicitly modeled on the idea of net neutrality. Just as the ISPs are told they have overriding duties to users of their networks not to discriminate, etc., so advocates of search neutrality want to impose legal duties on search engines to abide by overriding principles as follows (quoting from a brilliant dissection of search neutrality by law professor James Grimmelmann, found here: <a href="http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=james_grimmelmann" rel="nofollow">http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034...</a>):<p>"1. Equality: Search engines shouldn't differentiate at all among websites.<p>2. Objectivity: There are correct search results and incorrect ones, so search engines should return only the correct ones.<p>3. Bias: Search engines should not distort the information landscape.<p>4. Traffic: Websites that depend on a flow of visitors shouldn't be cut off by search engines.<p>5. Relevance: Search engines should maximize users' satisfaction with search results.<p>6. Self-interest: Search engines shouldn't trade on their own account.<p>7. Transparency: Search engines should disclose the algorithms they use to rank web pages.<p>8. Manipulation: Search engines should rank sites only according to general rules, rather than promoting and demoting sites on an individual basis."<p>Professor Grimmelmann goes on in his piece to critique each of these professed goals of the movement and to describe the legal implications of each.<p>Of course, if you open this gate in naked form (i.e., by explicitly adopting laws that expressly require search engines to abide by such duties), you effectively set up all search engines to be devoured by litigants and their lawyers, who can second-guess every decision, who can seek damages based on such second-guessing, and who can ask every manner of regulator to step in to supervise how search results are generated - all pretty much the antithesis of what we are accustomed to in this area and a serious step back from freedom (in my view) in an all-important area that affects us all profoundly in the modern digital world.<p>All this is mostly academic today except in the case of Google, which has to face such claims couched in terms of its allegedly abusing its monopoly position in various markets. Whenever you hear the innocuous-sounding term "search neutrality," however, realize that this is the direction in which it seeks to lead us if given the full implementation sought by its advocates.