A game theory-based analysis of search engine non-neutral behavior

Luis Guijarro, Vicent Pla, Bruno Tuffin (), Patrick Maillé () and Pierre Coucheney
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Luis Guijarro: UPV - Universitat Politècnica de València = Universitad Politecnica de Valencia = Polytechnic University of Valencia
Vicent Pla: UPV - Universitat Politècnica de València = Universitad Politecnica de Valencia = Polytechnic University of Valencia
Bruno Tuffin: DIONYSOS - Dependability Interoperability and perfOrmance aNalYsiS Of networkS - Centre Inria de l'Université de Rennes - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - IRISA-D2 - RÉSEAUX, TÉLÉCOMMUNICATION ET SERVICES - IRISA - Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires - UR - Université de Rennes - INSA Rennes - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - ENS Rennes - École normale supérieure - Rennes - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - Télécom Bretagne - CentraleSupélec - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Patrick Maillé: RSM - Département Réseaux, Sécurité et Multimédia - UEB - Université européenne de Bretagne - European University of Brittany - Télécom Bretagne - IMT - Institut Mines-Télécom [Paris]
Pierre Coucheney: DIONYSOS - Dependability Interoperability and perfOrmance aNalYsiS Of networkS - Centre Inria de l'Université de Rennes - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - IRISA-D2 - RÉSEAUX, TÉLÉCOMMUNICATION ET SERVICES - IRISA - Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires - UR - Université de Rennes - INSA Rennes - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes - INSA - Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud - ENS Rennes - École normale supérieure - Rennes - Inria - Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique - Télécom Bretagne - CentraleSupélec - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In recent years, there has been a rising concern about the policy of major search engines, and more specifically about their ranking in so-called organic results corresponding to keywords searches. The associated proposition is that their behavior should be regulated. The concern comes from search bias, which refers to search rankings based on some principle different from the expected automated relevance. In this paper, we analyze one behavior that results in search bias: the payment by content providers to the search engine in order to improve the chances to be located and accessed by a search engine user. A simple game theory-based model is presented where both a search engine and a content provider interact strategically, and the aggregated behavior of users is modeled by a demand function. The utility of each stakeholder when the search engine is engaged in such a non-neutral behavior is compared with the neutral case when no such side payment is present.

Keywords: Search engine; Neutrality; Nash equilibrium; User welfare (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-06-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-com and nep-gth
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00725180v1
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Published in NGI 2012: 8th Euro-NF Conference on Next Generation Internet, Jun 2012, Karlskrona, Sweden. pp.1-6

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