Scale and position matter. Google is the conduit that connects most people to most websites, so in the EU they are considered a "gatekeeper" and need to be careful about conflicts of interest with the people and websites using their "gate". I hope American competition law catches up to the point we can recognize that market makers simply should not be participating in the markets they make (and Google search is a market maker; it's connecting "buyers" [viewers or advertisers, depending on your perspective] to "sellers" [websites or viewers, respectively]), but I digress.
The point is that Google has a certain market position that makes it very different when they "recite the vague plot of a novel or a fact they learned". The point of competition law is to "distort" free market capitalism for the betterment of society. This is one of those cases where practical considerations trump information idealism. The quality of information on the internet will go down if we stop rewarding original publishers.
The point is that Google has a certain market position that makes it very different when they "recite the vague plot of a novel or a fact they learned". The point of competition law is to "distort" free market capitalism for the betterment of society. This is one of those cases where practical considerations trump information idealism. The quality of information on the internet will go down if we stop rewarding original publishers.