WebProNews » Antitrust

FairSearch Adds E-Commerce, Advertising Firms To Coalition

Chris Crum — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:57:28 +0000

In 2010, a group of travel sites banded together to form the FairSearch Coalition, with the main goal of seeing Google’s acquisition of ITA Software blocked. It didn’t work, but the coalition is still going strong, fighting to see antitrust action taken against Google.

The coalition, made up of Google competitors, including main competitor Microsoft, is expanding more beyond travel sites now. The coalition announced today that it has added not only new members in travel, but also members in e-commerce and advertising.

New members include: PPC ad company adMarketplace, online travel industry trade group the Interactive Travel Services Association (ITSA), online shopping site Twenga and marketing firm ShopCity.com.

You may recall, ShopCity filed an antitrust complaint against Google with the FTC a couple months ago:

For most of its existence, ShopCity’s growth has been thwarted by unjustified Google penalties and anticompetitive Google prefacing. These matters were realized in writing with the Commission staff months ago, but the staff has not followed up in any respect.

“When a company begins competing directly with Google, in a market where they are not yet the dominant player, Google will make it very difficult to succeed,” says ShopCity CEO Colin Pape today. “In the process, Google harms consumers by steering them away from relevant results, solely for Google’s own financial benefit.”

“We believe that Google uses its monopoly power to distort the marketplace by steering consumers away from the natural search results available for travel online,” says ITSA President Joseph Rubin. “Further, the online travel companies are required to provide various consumer disclosures with their listings. Our members think consumers deserve the protection of those disclosures that we provide, and that Google Flight Search in many cases does not.”

Twenga filed a complaint with the European Commission earlier this week, asking it to stop Google’s “anti-competitive business and search practices”. Twenga says these “undermine jobs and innovation in the European Union.”

Interestingly enough Google was in Brussels this week with members of the Commission talking about how businesses are growing, thanks to the Internet.

“By systematically ranking its own offerings over links to competitors, Google uses its dominant power to hurt other businesses rather than competing fairly in the marketplace,” says Bastien Duclaux, co-founder and CEO of Twenga. “Google’s abuse of its monopoly power in search threatens the ability of innovators everywhere to reach consumers on the Internet. Google has created the conditions for an uneven playing field in which it is predetermined to always emerge as the winner.”

adMarketplace CEO James Hill says, “As media industry veterans, we have built a compelling search advertising network. Every day, our client teams hear from potential customers and publishers that Google makes it difficult for them to work with other advertising networks. A level playing field is critical to a competitive online advertising marketplace – and that does not exist today because of Google’s practices.”

You can see a recent interview we did with FairSearch here, as well well as an interview TechFreedom, arguing against the merits of the coalition’s agenda.

Consumer Watchdog Calls On European Commission To Block Google Motorola Deal

Chris Crum — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 15:04:30 +0000

Consumer Watchdog is pushing to get the European Commission to block Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility and to issue a formal complaint against Google’s business practices.

The group’s Privacy Project Director John M. Simpson wrote a letter to Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia, saying, “The Commission’s role in keeping Google’s abuses in check is essential. Its executives have close relationships with many U.S. officials and the company just spent a record $9.7 million in 2011 lobbying policymakers in Washington. We have faith the Commission will not succumb to such influence. The Internet is too important to allow an unregulated monopolist to dominate it. We call on you to take the steps necessary to prevent it: block the Motorola merger and file a formal antitrust complaint against Google.”

If you’re unfamiliar with Consumer Watchdog, they’re the U.S.-based consumer advocacy group responsible for this:

And this:

Simpson is currently in Brussels to discuss standards for a Do Not Track mechanism at a meeting of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Tracking Protection Working Group.

The group expects the Commission to decide its position on the Motorola deal by mid-February, and a decision on whether to file a formal antitrust complaint by the end of March.

Below is Simpson’s letter to Almunia in its entirety:

Dear Vice President Almunia:

While in Brussels, I wanted to make a point of writing to you on behalf of Consumer Watchdog, a U.S. public interest group, about our concerns over Google’s ongoing anticompetitive behavior. First, I must express our gratitude for the lead role the European Commission has taken in launching an antitrust investigation of Google’s activities. As you know, our Federal Trade Commission finally started its own probe, which we believe came about largely because of the thorough and substantial EU effort.

But before the underlying substantial antitrust issues with Google’s ongoing business practices can be addressed and resolved, the Internet giant has yet another acquisition under scrutiny by regulatory authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. This proposal, to acquire Motorola Mobility, requires immediate attention. We urge the Commission to block the proposed $12.5 billion deal.

Google’s Android smartphone operating system dominates the mobile market with a 38 percent share and is growing. Apple’s iPhone has 27 percent. Google controls 95 percent of the mobile search market. There is evidence it is pressuring handset manufacturers to favor Google applications when using the Android operating system. Google’s earlier acquisition of AdMob gave the Internet Giant dominance in mobile ad sales. Allowing the Motorola Mobility deal would provide Google with unprecedented dominance in virtually all aspects of the mobile world – manufacturing, operating systems, search and advertising. It would be a virtually unstoppable juggernaut. We urge you to block the deal.

Once the proposed Motorola acquisition is dealt with, we hope the Commission will turn back to the underlying issue: the way Google uses search to unfairly promote its own properties and damage competitors. The recent announcement of Google’s “Search, plus Your World” is but the latest example of how Google uses its monopolistic position in an uncompetitive way to promote its own services. Search, plus Your World links Google+, Google’s new social network, to search and its favorable placement of the social network in results, particularly in the query box, gives Google an advantage over other social services like Facebook and Twitter.

As you know Google exerts monopoly power over Internet searches, controlling more than 90 percent of the market in some European countries and around 70 percent of the U.S. market. For most people in the world, Google is the gateway to the Internet. Google’s business practices to maximize its profits determine much of the Internet experience for most people by determining what they view.

We understand that the Commission is investigating this issue and applaud your efforts. In 2010 Consumer Watchdog’s study, Traffic Report: How Google is Squeezing out Competitors and Muscling Into New Markets (http://insidegoogle.com/2010/06/google-using-search-engine-to-muscle-into-internet-businesses study-finds-2/) demonstrated how with the launch of Universal Search Google favored its own properties and services in search results to the detriment of its competitors. One stark example was the dramatic drop off in traffic that occurred on Mapquest’s site after Google placed its Google Maps at the top of Universal Search.

Some observers had hoped that Google’s arrogant anticompetitive behavior would change in the face of investigations by the Commission, the FTC and several U.S. state attorneys general. Clearly, as its recent linking of Google+ to search and favorable placement of Google+ social network in search results demonstrates, the Internet giant will continue its monopolistic abuses unless regulators act strongly. We urge you to file a formal antitrust complaint against Google as soon as possible.

Information Is Power

Ultimately Google’s monopoly power stems from its monopoly over personal information.

Information is power and Google has amassed more data than anyone. How did Google gain this dominant position in consumer personal data? Very simply. The company tracked us all around the Internet and gave us no choice over whether our data was collected or not. Google tracks consumers around the Web, logs every search query and YouTube video watched and records the location of Android smartphone users.
Google’s presence on the Internet is so pervasive that consumers cannot escape its reach even if they do not use its services. Google’s ad network puts down tracking cookies and records consumers’ activities as they surf the Internet. It is this immense database of consumer information, intentions and desires that gives the Internet giant its power.

Many people think of Google as a technology company. In actuality Google is an advertising business. Consumers make a Faustian bargain, often unknowingly, to provide personal information about their habits, desires and behaviors in return for Google’s services. Google mines these massive digital dossiers and uses the information to sell ads, a lucrative business that accounts for 96 percent of its $30 billion annual revenue.

Every platform the company buys expands its database of information on individuals. More consumer data means more information to target individuals in the ad server market. Every piece of information that is added to that database makes Google’s ad targeting that much more sophisticated – in turn making it a must have for companies seeking to target advertising. The better Google’s data, the more advertisers will have to go to Google to reach their audience, thus increasing its dominance of the market. If Google’s unfettered absorption of companies, and the consumer information that comes with them, continues, and Google is not required to give consumers the ability to opt out of this data collection, the ever-increasing consumer information database Google is compiling will only strengthen its dominance over the ad server market.

People who use Google aren’t its customers. We are the Internet giant’s product. The immense database about us, largely gathered without our informed consent, is used to target ads and bring Google billions in advertising profits.

Remedies

To counter the information monopoly we must be given effective control over our data – whether it’s collected and how it’s used. Article 29 Data Protection policies put Europeans in a far stronger position in this regard than we in the United States. We can only hope such strong protections ultimately find their way into U.S. law. In addition as a strong complement to data protection, strict antitrust regulation to prevent unfair practices with search is necessary. Here are some specific recommendations:

- Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility should be blocked.

- Google could be broken into different companies devoted to different lines of business so
there is no incentive to unfairly use search to promote other services. Search could be
separated from advertising. Gmail and the new social networking service, Google +, could be
spun off as a separate entity, as could YouTube, a Google acquisition that should have been
denied at the time of merger. Enterprise applications could be another separate business.

- Google’s search engine’s importance as a gateway to cyberspace requires a maximum degree
of openness and transparency. Google’s monopoly position and importance to the Internet
means that the company should be closely regulated. Regulations could be designed to open
up Google’s ad platform to enable other competitors to compete. Rules could be crafted to
create greater transparency in the operation of Google’s ad platform to enable parties to
negotiate more effectively. For example: Providing greater visibility into the maximum
amount of the highest bid, how many search terms are shown per page, and how Google’s
“quality score” is derived and applied. Little, if any, of this information is currently public
and openness would contribute to consumer choice and options as well as foster competition.

- Another remedy could be to force Google to disgorge its monopolistic gains through the
imposition of financial penalties. The payment would have to be significant enough to
impact Google’s future behavior. Google hardly blinked when it paid half a billion dollars to
the United States to settle an illegal drug sales case. Perhaps the amount could be tied to
paying back consumers for monetizing their private information and content without asking
them permission or compensating them.

The Commission’s role in keeping Google’s abuses in check is essential. Its executives have close relationships with many U.S. officials and the company just spent a record $9.7 million in 2011 lobbying policymakers in Washington. We have faith the Commission will not succumb to such influence. The Internet is too important to allow an unregulated monopolist to dominate it. We call on you to take the steps necessary to prevent it: block the Motorola merger and file a formal antitrust complaint against Google.

Sincerely,

John M. Simpson
Privacy Project Director
Consumer Watchdog

Google And Competition: Should The Government Be Regulating?

Chris Crum — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 13:39:39 +0000

Google’s competitive practices have dominated the headlines this week, thanks to the company’s “Search Plus Your World” features (extensive integration of Google+ into search results, but not extensive integration of competing social networks Twitter and Facebook), but this is really just the latest episode in the ongoing complaints against the Internet’s dominant search player.

Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee recently wrote the Federal Trade Commission a letter calling for investigation into Google’s practices. “Given the scope of Google’s market share in general Internet search, a key question is whether Google’s using its market power to steer users to its own web products or secondary services and discriminating against other websites with which it compete,” the letter said.

The FTC already has an investigation going on, of course, and now, Bloomberg is reporting that it is expanding it to include Google+ scrutiny.

Do you think the government understands the Internet well enough to regulate it? Tell us what you think in the comments.

Something tells me recent events will only be used to fuel the fire of complaints to that effect, with Twitter and Facebook now speaking out against Google. Privacy watchdog EPIC is already considering a complaint to the FTC about Search Plus Your World, as well.

Competitors in the travel industry formed the FairSearch Coalition, initially to try and see Google’s acquisition of ITA Software (which would go on to power Google’s Flight Search) blocked. The acquisition was not blocked, but the group continues to campaign against what it considers to be Google’s abuse of power.

WebProNews spoke with Ben Hammer of FairSearch, who says what the group is focused on now that authorities in the U.S. and the European Union and around the world “have already established that Google has monopoly power in search on the Internet” would be: “is Google violating the law in ways that abuse that power to sort of tilt the playing field to itself, and basically restrict the options that consumers on the Internet have to find information, and then also get all the benefits that come from competition on the Internet?”

We asked Hammer what makes FairSearch think Google favors its products any more than any other search engine does. It is, after all, a fact that Bing’s results contain links to Microsoft’s own services. Bing director Stefan Weitz noted that the search engine’s goal is for users to stay on Bing’s site: “We’re taking Bing to a place you can actually accomplish things and do things, rather than send you off to those [other] sites,” he is quoted as saying.

“The group was formed by a number of companies that looked at how Google was already operating in other markets, and were concerned about how they’d operate in travel,” said Hammer. “As those concerns got greater awareness or were validated in some ways by the U.S. justice department that was reviewing that merger, we continued to hear from other companies in markets outside of travel – that said, ‘We’ve experienced this first hand. We know that Google takes our content and uses it to direct people back to their own services and away from ours. We know that Google puts links to its own products that compete with ours at the top of the page, eating up the most valuable real estate that people click on the most on its own pages. That makes it harder for us to get the traffic that we would normally get. We know that Google will bid against us in getting the most valuable advertising on its own pages…’”

Note, that this response didn’t exactly answer the question.

In November, Cyber Monday and Black Friday sites (including the official site of the group that created Cyber Monday — were removed completely from Bing’s search results). When asked specifically about the incident, he said he was not familiar with the topic, but that “this group from day one has been focused on what Google is doing with monopoly power.”

A different standard, he says, is applied to companies like Google because of this power.

“Most people understand that Microsoft [part of the coalition] and our other competitors complain constantly about Google, but they also know that Google builds our search results for users, not websites, and that the laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors,” a Google spokesperson tells WebProNews. “The fundamental openness of the Internet means that consumers have infinite choices and can always switch to Bing, Facebook, Kayak, or Expedia with just one click.”

WebProNews also spoke with Berin Szoka, the President of free market think tank TechFreedom who has some criticisms of FairSearch itself.

“I think it’s unfortunate that a lot of the tech policy debates really come down to motives,” he says, noting that the coalition is simply an alliance of Google’s competitors.

“Microsoft’s Bing is, if anything, much more biased than Google. You might say that’s OK because they’re not a dominant firm, so maybe they can do things that Google can’t, but if bias is your only way of distinguishing what’s competitive and what’s not competitive, it really is a problem that the industry norm, which is bias, is in fact the very thing that FairSearch is complaining about. Really, the analysis has to go a lot more beyond that and ask where there’s some example of consumer harm.”

“In this case, it’s hard to actually see any consumers complaining, as opposed to just Microsoft’s compatriots and this coalition,” he adds.

He goes on to make the case that we should be skeptical anytime competitors try to use regulators for competition, not only because it can hurt a company like Google, but that it could hurt the next Google by setting precedents.

He also compares the whole thing to SOPA, saying, “There are few people here in D.C. that really understand how the Internet works well enough to even have an intelligent conversation about how government can improve things.”

“I think when you see a company like Facebook, as large as it is, and as much of a lead in that area as it does, teaming up with a company like Microsoft, I think that is in fact the way competition works. It doesn’t happen necessarily in this space directly.”

Google has a site dedicated to what it calls “facts about Google and competition.” On the site, Google says, “As Google has grown, we’ve faced more questions about our approach to competition. This kind of scrutiny goes with the territory when you’re a large company. However, we’ve always worked hard to ensure that our success is earned the right way – through technological innovation and great products, rather than by locking in our users or advertisers, or creating artificial barriers to entry.”

“It takes a broadband connection to get onto the Internet, but consumers don’t need Google to access the web,” Google continues. “Google serves more like a GPS on the Internet highway—not an on-ramp. It helps people get around, but it’s not necessary. If someone knows where he wants to go, he can navigate to those destinations directly, whether it’s Craigslist, the New York Times websites, or icanhascheezburger.com. But, if he doesn’t know where he’s going, he can use a ‘GPS’ (a search engine like Google or Bing), a ‘map’ (a list of links or portal like Yahoo’s directory), directions or recommendations from a friend (links from Twitter or Facebook friends), or even a mobile application version of the service (for example, the NY Times iPhone application). Search engines are popular and useful, but they’re just one of many ways to navigate the web.”

“The Internet was built on fundamentally open architecture,” Google says. “Anyone at home with a computer and a web connection can type in the address of a website and navigate straight to that site. Google is one click away from losing every customer. There are virtually no switching costs, and there are many other valuable web services competing for traffic. If someone wants to use a competing search engine all they need to do is type ‘www.yahoo.com’ into a web browser.”

Do you agree with Google or its competitors? Let us know in the comments.

Google Vs. Twitter: Is “Search Plus Your World” Bad For The Internet?

Chris Crum — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:23:41 +0000

This week, Google launched Search Plus Your World (SPYW), a set of features to personalize search results for users, which also happen to give Google+ content a lot more play in search results. The whole thing has sparked a great deal of controversy, with people talking about antitrust implications, relevancy issues, etc. Even Twitter called the day it launched “a bad day for the Internet”.

Do you agree? Is Search Plus Your World bad for the Internet? Let us know what you think in the comments.

Google Vs. Twitter

The Google vs. Twitter element of this thing has been very interesting to me. In case you haven’t been following, let us recap this public back and forth these two companies have had this week. It started, when after Google announced SPYW, Twitter General Counsel tweeted:

@amac
Alex MacgillivrayBad day for the Internet. http://t.co/Az4rdNVQ Having been there, I can imagine the dissension @Google to search being warped this way. 1 day ago via web · powered by @socialditto

And Twitter emailed a statement around to the press, which said:

For years, people have relied on Google to deliver the most relevant results anytime they wanted to find something on the Internet.

Often, they want to know more about world events and breaking news. Twitter has emerged as a vital source of this real-time information, with more than 100 million users sending 250 million Tweets every day on virtually every topic. As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results.

We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.

Google responded to Twitter on Google+ saying:

“We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer (http://goo.gl/chKwi), and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions.”

I also found it a bit odd that Twitter would say this now, when really the lack of that aforementioned agreement renewal is what caused Twitter results to be less prevalent in Google search results. Twitter has not returned my request for comment on that at this point, but Macgillivray did tweet an example of where Google is surfacing Google+ over Twitter for the query “@WWE”. I’m not sure this is actually a product of SPYW, though the new features do place a prominent box of recommended Google+ profiles on the right-hand side of the page.

In an article specifically about that, we asked if the “@” symbol really belongs to Twitter anyway. Let us know in the comments what you think about that.

Competition

A lot of people view Google’s pushing of Google+ in search results to be anticompetitive. Some disagree.

One point that has been brought up repeatedly is that Google could be recommending public profiles from Twitter and Facebook alongside its Google+ recommendations. Sure, they could.

Facebook and Twitter don’t grant access to Google for all of the stuff that would improve the personalization experience. Danny Sullivan was able to get Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt to talk a little about this:

Google Fellow Amit Singhal, told Sullivan, “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service. Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”

Those are basically the same responses.

Likewise, in a blog post talking about the SPYW features, Google’s Matt Cutts talked about how the features do, in fact, surface content from other sites from the “open web”. It’s not just Google (though that still appears not to apply to the “People and Pages” recommendations box that gets such prominent attention – the feature that really seems to be causing the most stir).

But does Google not have the right to promote its own product in this way? Many don’t think it’s right. It’s worth noting that while Google may dominate in search, it is still an underdog in social. Even still, Google has only something like 65% of the search market.

“Is 65% enough to assert an effective monopoly?” asks Bud Gibson on Google+. “There’s probably plenty of room here for Google to assert that there’s healthy competition in the search and social spaces. And, … they’d be right.”

Matthew Yglesias at Slate writes, “A 65 percent market share in web search is big, but by no means a monopoly. And there are basically zero barriers to switching from Google Search to Bing.”

That plays to Google’s go-to statement of: “The competition is only a click away.”

For that matter, if people are using Google, and are signed into it, there’s a good chance that they want Google-related content. If you consider Google+ and Google search to be features of one larger Google product, than you might want these features to be as integrated as possible. All of Google’s products do operate under one central Google account. You expect Facebook search to return Facebook Pages.

Granted, Facebook isn’t apparently trying to be a search engine, but then why do they bother to supplement their search results with web results from Bing? Clearly Google and Facebook are direct competitors now – maybe not as much in search (yet), but as companies. If you look at things this way, you’d almost have to say that Google even having Google+ at all is anti-competitive. Are they not supposed to make the features of their broader Google product tightly integrated?

By the way, Google does a lot more to drive traffic to Twitter and Facebook than Facebook and Twitter do to drive traffic to Google.

“Given that it’s opt-out, I’m just not sure that this is all that different from Microsoft bundling IE with Windows,” says tech columnist MG Siegler. Based on a lot of what I’ve been reading around the web, quite a few agree with him.

Here are a few recent tweets about the issue:

@DanielBurstein
Daniel BursteinWhen Microsoft embedded IE in Windows, there was an antitrust investigation. How is Google+ embedded into @Google search any different? 4 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

@TechLiberation
Tech LiberationFrontFeds Should Stay Out of Google/Twitter Social Search Antitrust Spat http://t.co/V8SUBAcF 43 minutes ago via twitterfeed · powered by @socialditto

@bgedelman
Ben EdelmanGoogle is pushing its social services hard — I argue, “tying” unlawful under antitrust law. I show many more examples. http://t.co/sAHLKMvx 1 hour ago via web · powered by @socialditto

Privacy watchdog EPIC may file a complaint with the FTC.

Regardless of whether Google’s features are right or wrong, the timing of their release could end up biting Google in the ass, considering the heavy amount of scrutiny over competitive practices that currently surround the company. The complaints continue to pile up, and in various areas of Google’s search offerings.

Is Search Relevancy Being Sacrificed for Google+ Promotion?

Beyond all of the debate about Google’s competitive practices, there is a more important issue, at least to users. The new features may impact relevancy of search results for the worse. I personally have noticed that they could be a lot better, in terms of being personalized for me. Granted, I can turn the personalization off with the controls Google provides.

Some simply don’t like the idea of Google filling up their results with info based on who they know just because they know them, or content from Google+ just because it’s from Google+. Sullivan points to some “real life examples” of where Google isn’t necessarily living up to the relevancy side of things.

As he says, “Those results are supposed to be showing what are the most relevant things for searchers out there. That’s how Google wins. That’s how Google sticks it to competitors, by not trying to play favorites in those results, nor by trying to punish people through them.”

Ironically, if Google’s results become less relevant, people will probably want to use Google less. Perhaps Twitter, Facebook and other “competitors” should be cheering on Google’s approach.

Do you think what Google is doing is good or bad for the web? Let us know in the comments.

Google Search Plus Your World May Draw FTC Complaint

Chris Crum — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:11:03 +0000

EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is reportedly considering filing a complaint with the United States Federal Trade Commission over Google’s new “Search Plus Your World” features.

In an interview with the LA Times, EPIC’s executive director Marc Rotenberg said the group may file a complaint. The group has done so in the past, with regards to Google’s inclusion of YouTube videos in search results.

EPIC has put up the following statement on its site, citing concerns over Search Plus Your World:

Google is changing the results displayed by its search engine to include data from its social network, such as photos or blog posts made by Google+ users, as well as the public Internet. Although data from a user’s Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google’s changes make the personal data of users more accessible. Users can opt out of seeing personalized search results, but cannot opt out of having their information found through Google search. Also, Google’s changes come at a time when the company is facing increased scrutiny over whether it distorts search results by giving preference to its own content. Recently, the Senate held a hearing on Google’s use of its dominance in the search market to suppress competition, and EPIC urged the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google’s use of Youtube search rankings to give preferential treatment to its own video content over non-Google content. Google has also acknowledged that the FTC is investigating whether Google uses its dominance in the search field to inhibit competition in other areas.

There has been a lot debate around the new features, which make Google+ much more a part of Google Search. You can read more about Twitter’s public opposition to the features here. In a nutshell, Twitter thinks the changes make Twitter content less accessible to users. I don’t really see how this changes things in that regard. Twitter content has been less accessible since Twitter and Google failed to renew their realtime search/Twitter firehose deal last year (which I do also see as a negative thing).

Twitter and Facebook are both keeping Google from certain data, which Google would be able to use to improve as a search engine. Some argue, however that Google can get enough public data from Twitter and Facebook to work into the new offerings, at least to some extent. All of this is true.

On the one hand, Google could, for example recommend Twitter accounts and Facebook pages for celebrities, the way it is doing with Google+ profiles. On the other hand, Google doesn’t have the data from Twitter and Facebook to deliver the kind of personalized results it can offer via Google+. It’s easier for Google to improve the user experience, at least in theory, when they can give you any data that that is available (personalized data). Google+, which is really just an extension of the Google account itself, is Google’s way of trying to deliver this stuff, supplemented with other public data from places like Flickr, Quora, WordPress, etc.

Danny Sullivan posted this video of Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt talking about the lack of Facebook and Twitter data:

Part of Search Plus Your World is the addition of a special section for “People and Pages on Google+”. When I search for “music” I see profiles for Britney Spears, Mariah Carey and Busta Rhymes – Google profiles. Nothing but Google profiles in that section. However, the top organic result I get is for Yahoo Music. Not even Google Music.

I see the new features as more of a relevancy problem than an antitrust problem. If Google is taking what it knows about me, to personalize my search results, it should recognize that I use Google Music (I don’t use Yahoo Music), and that I don’t give a crap about Britney Spears, Mariah Carey or Busta Rhymes) – at least not as much of a crap as it would take to deem them worthy of that kind of placement for such a broad term. In fact, I would argue that my results would be much better for the user (me) if Google actually tapped its own Google Music property to understand the music I like. I don’t need Facebook pages or Twitter accounts for Britney, Mariah or Busta either.

Part of the reason I use multiple products from Google is because I expect there to be integration. It’s often disappointing when that integration is lacking. It makes things less usable. If I’m signed in to my Google account, I want easy access to content that’s related to my Google account. If I want things from Facebook or Twitter, I know where to look.

If you are signed into Google, you are signed into your Google account. You are signed into Google+. When you’re not signed in, well, that’s a different ballgame. One thing that is a bit iffy here, is that Google said in is announcement that Search Plus Your World would be for users that are signed in. The personal stuff is, but the People and Places stuff that highlights Google+ accounts still appears when the user is signed out.

That could be an issue.

Google Antitrust Regulation Still Up In The Air In Europe

Chris Crum — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 15:15:43 +0000

Google may or may not face a “statement of objections” from the EU’s antitrust department. Apparently it could go either way, as the regulators have so far been unable to decide whether or not to go this route.

I guess no news is good news for Google in this case.

According to Bloomberg, the formal complaint that may or may not happen would be related to alleged anticompetitive practice, as regulators investigate claims from competitors (including Microsoft of course) that Google has gone so far as to stop some sites from accepting rival ads.

The investigation appears to be about much more than just search results, though that is a big part of it. Some have even alleged that Google’s famous (or infamous, depending on how you look at it) Panda update has been used anti-competitively.

Newspaper publishers in Europe are complaining about Google’s use of news content…an age old complaint really.

Antitrust complaints about Google in general have also included complaints about reviews and travel information.

The company’s acquisition of ITA Software has been one of the biggest catalysts to such scrutiny, with travel sites, led by the FairSearch Coalition going on a huge campaign to push for regulation of Google’s ways.

As Google continues to acquire companies and get into more spaces, the complaints are likely to continue piling up.

In Europe, it’s still possible that Google could face a massive fine.

Google Flight Search Not Popular With Competitors

Chris Crum — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 14:21:59 +0000

The holidays are obviously a big time of year for air travel, which means they’re also a big time of year for flight search. It seems only fitting that it is a good time for travel sites to complain about Google.

OK, that pretty much goes on all year ‘round.

Earlier this month, Google began showing its flight info (introduced back in September as the product of the company’s acquisition of ITA Software) right in regular search results for certain travel-related queries. Flight search was initially available via the left-hand navigation panel on Google searh result pages, but now these kinds of results are just the default search experience when Google thinks the users is looking for this kind of information.

“For example, if you search for [flights from San Francisco to Las Vegas] you’ll see a table that shows available flights, including duration and prices,” explained Emmet Connolly, UX designer on Google’s Flight Search feature. “You can adjust dates on the page, or click any flight to further research and book your trip.”

A new Wall Street Journal report says that the “top travel websites,” rely on Google for 10% to 20% of their traffic, citing Compete data, and that these sites are being pushed down Google’s SERPs in favor of Google’s own Flight search info. Obviously, they’re not happy about this.

There’s another interesting snippet from that report, talking about how Google said in talks with the Department of Justice around its ITA acquisition, that it would “build tools that drive more traffic to airline and online travel agency sites, and that competitors think Google is not living up to this promise. The report says:

Google acknowledges it has failed to make good on assurances it would link to the travel sites, but the company says it had no choice. “The airlines told us that they would not give us [travel data] if we provided booking links to” online travel agencies, Jeremy Wertheimer, ITA’s founder and now a Google vice president, said at an online travel conference last month.

It’s important to note that the DoJ did not require Google to link to the travel sites.

Google has been in antitrust discussions with regulators throughout the year, and last week, Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee put together a letter calling for an FTC investigation of Google, with an emphasis on the company’s search results. You can read that here.

Google paid $700 million to acquire ITA Software.

Is Google Hurting Free Market Competition?

Chris Crum — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:03:26 +0000

Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee have put together a letter calling for an FTC investigation of Google, with an emphasis on the company’s search results.

Do you think Google is anticompetitive? Let us know in the comments.

Here’s the letter in its entirety:

Google FTC Letter 12 19 11

Note that the letter refers to Bing as “a partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo”. And that this is the only competition Google has. I’m not sure this is an accurate portrayal of the search industry. Bing is not a partnership of Microsoft and Yahoo. It’s Microsoft’s search engine. They are separate. Sure, they do have a partnership, and Bing powers the back-end of Yahoo, but they are still two different search engines. Granted, they are sharing an advertising platform now. Furthermore, there are other search engines out there, though their market share isn’t nearly as great.

Newer kinds of search engines have popped up in recent memory. Blekko and DuckDuckGo spring immediately to mind. Just because people aren’t using them as much as Google, doesn’t mean they aren’t free to compete. They aren’t being used nearly as much as Bing either. Bing has proven that marketing a search engine and making strategic partnerships can go a long way in gaining market share in the search industry.

The reality of the Internet and the search industry is much broader than competition among search engines. The fact is that people are obtaining information in a lot more ways now. They’re relying on search less for some of that. They’re turning to social media and different apps. A lot of iPhone users may be turning to Siri now. That’s just an example. Smartphones and tablets have opened up the world to a whole new world of apps for consuming information online. That itself could be just as big of an obstacle for Bing as anything.

For that matter, it could be a benefit for Bing if they play their cards right. If people have to rely on the traditional search engine less for some types of information consumption, perhaps there are opportunities for Microsoft to innovate more in the app world. I do believe the direction they’re going with Xbox and Kinect can have some pretty big ramifications. I wonder what a Bing-infused Xbox mobile device could accomplish for their share of the search market. Getting Xbox Live features on mobile devices is a start, but what about something more like what Sony is doing with the Playstation Vita, only Xbox style, taking advantage of the new Xbox platform.

A representative for the FairSearch Coalition sent us these comments on the letter from Rick Rule, head of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division from 1985-1989, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, and outside counsel to Microsoft:

Senator Lee is right to call for careful scrutiny of Google, given the numerous allegations of antitrust violations by the company. The antitrust laws of this country prohibit companies like Google that dominate important parts of our economy from using their market power to destroy competition and to deny consumers of choice. Decisions from conservative courts make clear that the antitrust laws apply just as much to the new economy as to the old. If a company like Google is allowed to flout the rule of law, then free-market competition will suffer.

Senator Lee’s letter to the FTC shows that the Senator understands that promoting sound antitrust law enforcement is an important bulwark against the inevitable calls for regulation. Senator Lee’s letter is in line with the views of conservative judges and free-market heroes, like Judge Bork and Judge Posner.

I too am a conservative who believes in the supremacy of free markets. I worked for President Reagan as the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division. We understood then, as Senator Lee understands today, that in order for free-market competition to work, consumers and producers must be able to respond to the market’s “invisible hand” free from artificial restraints imposed by government, by cartels, or by monopolists like Google. The troubling allegations that Google uses its market power to impose such restraints are too numerous to ignore. As Senator Lee’s letter demonstrates, conservative principles demand that Google be held accountable to the rule of law.

They also sent us these comments from Mark Corallo, former Press Secretary and then Public Affairs Director for the U.S. Department of Justice under Attorney General John Ashcroft (2002-2005). He’s currently a spokesman for FairSearch:

Senators Herb Kohl (D-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT) sent a letter to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz requesting that the FTC conduct an investigation into Google’s business practices. They should be applauded. The rule of law is non-partisan. And that is all they are requesting of the FTC – make sure that Google is following the law.

Considering the grilling they gave Google CEO Eric Schmidt at Senate hearing back in September, the news is not that these two Senators have concerns relating to Google’s leveraging its market dominance in anti-competitive and potentially illegal ways. The news is that the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Antitrust Subcommittee put it in writing and asked for action. When two senators not only agree on an issue but are willing to do something about it, the seismic tremors can be felt from the halls of the FTC right on up to Google’s executive suites. And that’s nothing compared to the shockwave that Google’s multimillion dollar lobbying team is feeling from all sides – after all, they’re paid to cut off these types of legitimate inquiries.

Citing testimony from their September 21 hearing, Senator Kohl and Senator Lee rightly raised several issues of concern that merit investigation. Among those concerns are:

Erik Schmidt’s admission that Google has a dominant position in the search market: “I would agree, Senator, we’re in that area”;

The dramatic changes in Google’s business model from delivering search results based on popularity to steering users to its ever increasing Google-owned Internet properties;

The suppression of natural search results in favor of Google links; and

The damage to competition and innovation that is the lifeblood of the internet economy and inevitably the American economy.

The Senators ended the letter rging the FTC to take a closer look:

“We believe these allegations rgarding Google’s search engine practices raise important competition issues. W are committed to ensuring that consumers benefit from robust competition in oline search and that the Internet remains the source of much free-market
innovation. We therefore urge the FTC to investigate the issues raised at our sbcommittee hearing to determine whether Google’s actions violate antitrust law or substantially harm consumers or competition in this vital industry.”

My translation for the layman: “How can we trust Google?

FairSearch’s official statement is as follows:

FairSearch.org applauds Senators Kohl and Lee for urging the Federal Trade Commission to conduct “a thorough investigation” of allegations that Google’s business practices leverage the company’s monopoly power in ways that are contrary to antitrust law. This bipartisan letter validates the many concerns held by the members of FairSearch.org and thousands of other companies about the impact Google’s anticompetitive behavior has on innovation and consumer choice. We agree with the Senate Antitrust Subcommitee leadership’s conclusion that, given the inconsistent testimony of Eric Schmidt and the concerns raised by witnesses like Yelp and Nextag, Google can no longer simply be trusted to not abuse its dominant position in online search. We continue to encourage the FTC, along with state Attorneys General and the European Commission, to respond to the Senators’ call to investigate, as antitrust scrutiny is vital to ensuring consumers reap the benefits of robust competition and innovation in online search.

In October, FairSearch released a 44-page paper about Google’s “anticompetitive conduct”.

In June, Google put out a blog post discussing five principles that “will stand up” to scrutiny related to competition:

1. Do what’s best for the user. We make hundreds of changes to our algorithms every year to improve your search experience. Not every website can come out at the top of the page, or even appear on the first page of our search results.

2. Provide the most relevant answers as quickly as possible. Today, when you type “weather in Chicago” or “how many feet in a mile” into our search box, you get the answers directly—often before you hit “enter”. And we’re always trying to figure out new ways to answer even more complicated questions just as clearly and quickly. Advertisements offer useful information, too, which is why we also work hard to ensure that our ads are relevant to you.

3. Label advertisements clearly. Google always distinguishes advertisements from our organic search results. As we experiment with new ad formats and new types of content, we will continue to be transparent about what is an ad and what isn’t.

4. Be transparent. We share more information about how our rankings work than any other search engine, through our Webmaster Central site, blog, diagnostic tools,support forum, and YouTube. We also give advertisers detailed information about the ad auction and tips to improve their ad quality scores. We’ve recently introduced even more transparency tools, announcing a major change to our algorithm, providing morenotice when a website is demoted due to spam violations, and giving advertisers new information about ads that break our rules.

5. Loyalty, not lock-in. We firmly believe you control your data, so we have a team of engineers whose only goal is to help you take your information with you. We want you to stay with us because we’re innovating and making our products better—not because you’re locked in.

And of course, Google always like to play the “competition is only a click away” card.

That’s a valid point though, is it not? Tell us what you think.

Microsoft, Novell Lawsuit Ends With Sopranos-Style Mistrial

Drew Bowling — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:20:44 +0000

After seven years in court, Microsoft is expected to ask the U.S. federal judge to dimiss the antitrust suit filed against them by Novell. Novell made their closing arguments in the case last week but a jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision, leaving the judge to declare a mistrial.

Novell originally filed the suit claiming that Microsoft purposely suppressed and sabotaged WordPerfect, a word processing platform developed by Novell, in order to consolidate users to Microsoft Word. Consequently, Novell claims they suffered severe financial loss due to Microsoft’s tampering. Alternately, Microsoft has cited Novell’s own mismanagement for the decline of WordPerfect’s popularity and usability.

From Network World:

In a filing to U.S. federal judge J. Frederick Motz, Microsoft’s lawyer said Monday that the company intends to renew its motion for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

A motion for a judgment as a matter of law is a request for relief on the basis that the opposite party’s case does not have legally sufficient evidence for any reasonable jury to take a decision. It can be renewed as a second chance after a jury trial.

In ruling on the renewed motion, under Rule 50 the court may allow judgment on the verdict if the jury returned a verdict, order a new trial, or direct the entry.

Incredibly, some jurors were reported to be in tears after being dismissed. Attorneys on both sides admitted to being disappointed as they were hopeful to get some kind of verdict after all of this time.

Oddly, the jury was hung at an 11-1 decision against Microsoft, which causes me to fondly recall all of those episodes of The Sopranos where the mob dudes would terrorize one poor juror into holding out from agreeing on a verdict. Members of the Sopranos mob family would intimidate and threaten one vulnerable juror in order to coerce them into dissenting from the otherwise unanimous jurors’ decision against the accused gangster. Without an agreement among jurors, the case ends in mistrial and the mobster walks free.

But who knows if Microsoft actually has that kind of menacing clout; it all just sounds very odd.

The actual request to dismiss the case is expected to be filed early next year.

Google Panda Update: Antitrust Connections Being Tossed Around

Chris Crum — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 17:08:56 +0000

Ah, the Google Panda update. The search story of the year. It just won’t leave the news will it?

As recently reported, Google could be facing a massive fine over antitrust complaints in Europe. The European Commission is expected to issue Google a 400-page document talking about its alleged “abuse of dominance.”

While in my opinion, it may be a bit of a stretch, a new Guardian article is drawing a connection from this to the Panda update. The piece talks about an Irritable Bowel Syndrome site that was hit by Panda back in February, and then jumps to:

Any day now, the European commission is expected to announce whether it will formally object to what some see as Google’s abuse of its power in the way that it treats smaller sites that offer the same sorts of services as it does.

If that happens, Google could be forced to comply with strictures on the way it treats rival sites offering particular sorts of search – for news, products, maps, shopping, images or videos – rather than pushing its own on the site. Alternatively, it could face fines of millions of pounds.

The piece goes on to quote Adam Raff, co-founder of Foundem, a vertical search engine who has filed a complaint against Google:

“Panda is a collection of disparate updates,” Raff says. She says that though panda was widely touted as an attack on content farms, “it also marks an aggressive escalation of Google’s war on rival vertical search services. First, vertical search services are in many ways the polar opposite of content farms” – because they link to multiple different sites, rather than containing content on one site.

…

“Panda wasn’t just deployed in the midst of these investigations; we suggest that it was deployed in direct response to them. By bundling these diametrically opposed updates together, the ‘content farm’ elements could be viewed as providing cover for the vertical search targeted elements.”

I guess that’s one point of view.

While on the topic of Panda, a WebmasterWorld member (Content_ed) has an interesting story up about moving his good content from a Panda hit site to a site that was actually boosted by Panda.

“I moved a half dozen pages that were drawing a few hundred visitors a day from Google on my Pandalized (down 80%) site to my Panda pleased (up over 300%) site this weekend,” he says. “It took a little over 24 hours for Google to start indexing the pages on the new site so I’m not sure if Monday results represent a full day. Of the half dozen pages, three were slightly above their pre-Panda level (year-over-year) on Monday, and three were around 20% under. The average Google traffic for the six pages Monday was around 250 visitors each.”

It’s something to cosider, given HubPages’ strategy of subdomaining to separate out the better stuff.

WebmasterWorld moderator Tedster had the following response to Content_ed’s post: “A lot may depend on the number of pages that each site contains. If you moved half a dozen pages to a domain that contains hundreds or thousands of other pages, you may see no changes with future Panda iterations. There’s also a chance, since Panda has a site-wide influence, that these pages were not the source of the Panda problem on their original domain. In which case, you made an excellent move.”

With that, I’ll leave you with an infographic about Panda from Cognitive SEO: