Last year Europe started losing it’s collective mind when it passed the so-called right-to-be-forgotten laws. These require Google and other search engines to remove references to people who request it in search engines. Never mind the law doesn’t require original source sites to remove the information, just search engines. Never mind the outrageous violation of the principles of freedom of speech.

Then, the geniuses in Spain demanded that Google News pay for the privilege of linking to news articles in Spanish newspapers. Google responding by shutting down Google news in Spain entirely. Good for them.

Now they’re at it again. France is demanding that Google display at least three rivals on their home page. C’mon people, get real. There’s this thing called “competition”. Why should Google promote their competitor sites? The competition is FOUR LETTERS AWAY. It’s called BING. If you don’t like Google, don’t use it. Four letters.

Even worse, France is demanding Google open it’s algorithm up. I can’t imagine a worse outcome for consumers than that. Forget about it being bad for Google. It’s bad for consumers! Think Spam is bad now? Wait til the black hat SEO people, link farmers and the like know how Google fights them off.

Look, I’ve competed with Google in local search, not very successfully. Yes, they favor their own properties. Any why not? It’s their search engine to do with as they please. I see nothing wrong with it. And most of the sites who complain about it get most of their traffic from Google anyway.  Unhappy Google isn’t sending you enough traffic? Get your own traffic.

And Europe: four letters. Bing. It’s not that hard.