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Editor: Matt Paines

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Traditional media want Google's freedom

Leading figures from the traditional media have spoken out against the widening imbalance between the tight regulation of their industry sector and the free hand that digital rival Google enjoys.

The competition authorities impose rules on television and newspapers that prevent them from monopolising the market.

Meanwhile Google, which does not come under the 2003 Communications Act, has captured more than 80% of the UK internet search market.

Google is also poised to overtake ITV as the UK's biggest advertiser and is getting to the point of dominance where no marketing campaign can afford to ignore it.

Chief executive of Trinity Mirror, Sly Bailey, urged the government to slacken the heavy-handed rules that could precipitate the traditional media's demise.

She said that the group's digital rivals should not be regulated more, but that her sector should be regulated less.

Only recently chief executive of BBC Worldwide, John Smith, highlighted the flip side when he questioned whether regulators might start to gain an interest in search engines.

However, Google sits at the heart of a rapidly moving industry, which has no national borders.

Media partner at law firm Lewis Silkin, Cliff Fluet, also pointed out that there was no public appetite to regulate the internet.

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