Techcrunch is publishing some real rubbish, nowadays:

The Time Has Come To Regulate Search Engine Marketing And SEO

Imagine, if you will, that the entire Internet is contained within a single continent. That continent is filled with countries, states and cities. Each jurisdiction is autonomous, relying on visitors to cross on to their turf to engage in commerce. Now, imagine if the only way to get into this continent involved just two methods: SEO and SEM. Let’s further imagine that the borders to this continent were controlled by a single company. Let’s also hold that the rules for search engine optimization listings and search engine marketing were not only defined but were completely controlled at the whim of this single company. Of course, we all realize that word-of-mouth marketing and viral marketing also contribute to traffic to individual websites. That said, the primary methodology for all users to reach any individual website destination is still search, of either paid or organic listings.

Or suppose the paradigm is the streets of Los Angeles. Let’s imagine that in order to enter the city you had to pass through a single gate. And once you entered that gate, the streets you were or were not allowed to go down — and thus the businesses you were or were not allowed to visit — could be randomly blocked from your access. Blocked to a point where you might not even know they exist; whatever streets were available for you to traverse were in essence the only streets you knew where business could be transacted.

Whatever the scenario, it’s unsettlingly close to the situation that prevails today in search. […]

Yadda, yadda paranoia envy – the point is the web is not a continent with only one border, run by one company, etc; if it’s smart Google must be looking over its shoulders at Twitter and wondering whether PageRank can forever beat-out word-of-mouth (answer: “no, they will have to rub along together with whatever else arises in the future”) – and if you remember the hype about Facebook becoming the next big driving force in advertising[1] then the TechCrunch article is a bizarre recantation.

Also note the author’s presentation of his narrow belief that SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are the be-all and end-all of internet needs, requirements and goals. Yeah, really, like I read e-mail and IM every morning, in pursuit of my daily fix of branding.

If you have a better idea/solution than Google regarding search, then set it up. Go for it. Do it. Don’t whine about lack of regulation.

Transparency? Yes, transparency is great, but:

I’ve worked with many businesses who feel they are playing in Google’s world — behaviors from product decisions to marketing strategies rely completely on appeasing these undocumented and often mystical Google desires. I’ve seen companies choose to not work with Google’s competitors for fear that by building those relationships, they’re damaging the ability to be indexed properly on Google and are anxious that result sets will be compromised. Many likewise believe that by having a monetization relationship through Google, they will somehow achieve higher quality listings through organic search. I’ve also witnessed companies who, in addition to using Google for monetization, have preferred relationships with purchasing traffic through Google Adwords. By supporting this dual relationship, they appear to want to live by two sets of rules – those that exist within the Adwords marketplace and those that apply to the Adsense product. And because they’re walking on both sides of the (Google) street, they feel they have a strategic advantage — as though the Adwords product will enable them to acquire traffic at both a lower cost and with a looser rule set than their competitors.

Yes, there are people out there who believe all kinds of incredible things. Some are right, some are wrong. Your point is what?

Here’s where the parallel to free trade breaks down.

Which begs the question: was it ever a good parallel in the first place, and is it an appropriate parallel to draw, and why are you drawing it?

There are no perfect paradigms looking at free trade and import/export laws that exactly define or address this challenge. Neither would a secret relationship between the government and the search engines solve the problem. The only real solution is disclosure. Transparency. Those traffic generators that use rule-based algorithms to determine result sets must publicly disclose their methodologies.

“Traffic generators”? So you are thinking of this in terms of “The Matrix” – the users of the web are nothing more than batteries who are aggregated by Google to provide current that powers the marketplace, and you are worried that you are getting stiffed by your power company? Here’s some news for you – it’s not a monopoly – you can get by without Google if you want. You’ll just get indexed by them regardless, but it is only the belief that you need advertising in the same way you need electricity, that puts you into this mindset and hampers you.

That is the means by which all businesses can compete freely in the organic and paid search marketplaces. If we lived in a world where Google didn’t hold sway over such a significant portion of consumer behavior, this kind of regulation wouldn’t be necessary. The market would be self-correcting, and we could trust the individual decisions of a healthy and competitive search industry. Regrettably, due to search dominance, the industry can’t be left to its own devices

Rubbish. To borrow a phrase from a popular series of adverts, just “Think different.”

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[1] which it won’t, because it attempts to be the entire internet in-miniature, and the Internet abhors such. Witness AOL’s attempts to beat/survive the Web.