Search engines, portals and global capitalism

This chapter examines the claim made by Michael Dawson and John Bellamy-Foster that the Internet will fail to produce a perfect marketplace. Their claim lies in the political and economic history of communications, an indistry increasingly dominated by oligopoly. They believe that the information highway will be no exception to this trend, especially considering its increasing attractiveness to global capital.

My argument is that within the development of portals and search engines, we can see Foster and Dawson's thesis played out. These companies show how the development of the Internet has been one of commercial interests, how they have the potential to be powerful marketing tools and how thier continuing financial saga is evidence of a trend towards oligopoly on the information highway.