Does this really sound that alien to people? I seem to recall the internet being controlled and blacklisted from a large portion of the population by AOL. Recall when people used to think that AOL keyword search was the entirety of the internet? This doesn't seem that much different from the old AOL tactics in my opinion.
> Recall when people used to think that AOL keyword search was the entirety of the internet?
I'm not the OP but I personally don't remember any of that because I'm not an American (like a major part of populace on the Internet) and I've never used AOL. And maybe AOL failed in America exactly because it did the things you mention they were doing, i.e. "controlling and blacklisting" a large part of the Internet.
AOL wasnt the internet. It was a private network that eventually allowed you access to the internet as its popularity increased. Once dialup died they made a broadband client.
If Google is trying to make their own private internet on top of the public internet I'm sure a few antitrust regulators will start asking about their hold on search and ad markets.
