The Adam Smith Institute's Head of Digital Policy, Charlotte Bowyer, writes for the CityAM Forum: Is News Corp right that Google’s internet dominance is damaging?

Charlotte Bowyer, a digital policy researcher at the Adam Smith Institute, says No.

It’s true that Google’s size makes issues such as user privacy, data scraping and the make-up of its search algorithms a concern. However, this doesn’t, on balance, mean that Google's dominance is a bad thing.

Its share of the search market was achieved against fierce competition, suggesting nothing more sinister than a superior service. It has also mastered the art of creating valuable, additional products from data that users are happy to provide. This allows it to offer deep, tailored and useful services which add value to our online experience.

And while presenting Google Maps at the top of a search result might reduce traffic to certain sites, it’s hard to see it as detrimental to users’ needs.

Indeed, many of the criticisms News Corp levels against Google stem from its own struggle to achieve a successful online business model. Issues of intellectual property shouldn’t be conflated with the question of market abuse.

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