Net Neutrality

Part of the debate – in Westminster Hall at 4:09 pm on 5 April 2011.

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Photo of Phillip Lee Phillip Lee Conservative, Bracknell 4:09, 5 April 2011

Thank you, Mr Gale, for chairing this debate and thanks to the Minister for allowing me to make a short contribution.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend Mr Raab on securing this timely debate. The primary reason why I am speaking in it is that Foundem is based in my constituency of Bracknell. I am very proud of this highly innovative UK technology business, and I am also proud that it is at the forefront of challenging Google in this way. By doing so, it is going into bat for future UK start-ups, particularly in the IT sector.

I noted that the Government’s new “Start-up Britain” website actually has Google on it, giving away AdWords. I must say that my eyebrows were raised by that and I suspect that, when that website was launched, those of Foundem’s owners were raised too, because when Foundem was launched in 2006 Google’s AdWords were 5p a hit. Overnight, that went to £5 a hit and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton has pointed out, Foundem slipped down the Google search rankings from fourth to 120th. Foundem was never given a reason for that, and it took the company more than three years to have that situation turned around. In that period, Google Product Search went up dramatically, a dramatic amount of money was made and a significant part of the search business was taken by Google.

It is time that we all got real about this. Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading have the necessary legislation—the Competition Act 1998—and EU law to support them. They need to get on with protecting British start-ups, so that those businesses can thrive and there is a fair environment in which they can exist.

I note that in 2009 the chief executive officer of the OFT was quoted as saying that there was no case for the regulator to challenge Google’s dominance. In the same year, there was an op-ed piece in The New York Timesby one of the founders of Foundem, which basically outlined what had happened to the company in the preceding three years. Anybody who has heard Foundem’s case and seen its PowerPoint presentation would feel the same way. I encourage the Minister to meet with Foundem’s representatives. I know that they have already requested a meeting with the Minister and I encourage him to see Foundem’s presentation, because it is quite compelling and totally contradicts the view of the OFT’s CEO in 2009.

Finally, I want to open this debate up by saying that it is not only about commerce. Commerce is obviously very important, and Foundem’s case is based on commerce, but the principle here is about where we access services, knowledge and information. Google provides 95% of searches in Europe. If someone goes to Google to search for a dishwasher or a new television, they also go there to search for news and knowledge. We now have Google providing search products, Google News, Google Health and a Google bank. Next we might have a Google dictionary and later on a Google religion. I may be overplaying things, but the reality is that this company has suppressed the growth of a business in my constituency—that is the reality. I do not think that that is in the best interests of this country, and I do not think that one company having that amount of power is in the best interests of this country, either.

Google is part of the infrastructure of the internet. That is the reality. If we stopped people on the street and asked them, “What is the internet?”, most of them would view it as starting with a search engine. And for search engines, 90% of Britons use Google. Google is to be congratulated on achieving such a powerful position in the world economy, but because it has that position, it needs to be subject to regulation so that companies such as Foundem and many others in the future can get a fair hearing in the world economy.