Search Engine Land » Google: Acquisitions

“Googler Killer”, Cuil, Patent Applications Acquired By Google

Barry Schwartz — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:24:27 +0000

Googler Killer, Cuil, which launched in June 2008 and went defunct in September 2010, have had their patent applications acquired by Google.

Bill Slawski spotted the transfer of ownership of these patent applications this morning. The patents transfer to Google from Cuil include 20090240672, 20090240685, 20090241044, 20090241018, 20090241058, 20090241065 and 20090241066.

This is not all that surprising, being that one of the co-founders, Anna Patterson joined Google the same month Cuil went offline.

Larry Page “CEO Of The Year” — Investors Business Daily

Greg Sterling — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:10:05 +0000

When Larry Page took over the CEO role at Google last year the company was doing well. Now it’s doing better and so Investor’s Business Daily has named him “CEO of the Year.” The publication summed up its rationale as follows:

[Page] reorganized the company’s management structure, redesigned the face of the company’s products and pushed forward with a multibillion dollar deal to acquire a cellphone manufacturing outfit.

He also launched two other products aiming at Groupon, the leader of online coupons, and Facebook, the top social networking site.

Google (GOOG) in the past two quarters blew away analyst views while boosting revenue by 32% and 33%, respectively.

Page officially took over from Eric Schmidt in April (with the CEO switch announcement almost exactly a year ago). We wrote a number of articles at the time speculating about the rationale for the change and outlook for Google under Page’s leadership:

Page has done a number of major things since taking over in April:

Reorganized Google’s management structure for efficiency and faster decision-making
Launched Google+ (and Google Offers)
Shuttered numerous products and initiatives (and brought more focus)
Bought Motorola Mobility (for $12.5 billion)

Most impressively however Page (and team) were conscious of the dangers of falling into a kind of bureaucratic malaise as the company matured — and sought to intervene in real time. There was already some evidence that it was happening. But to a large degree bureaucracy and its related challenges are a natural function of growth and maturation.

Companies periodically need to be “reinvented” or “shaken up” or they lose the qualities and momentum that made them successful. But reorgs can also go badly wrong. And while Page hasn’t “reinvented” Google he certainly has brought decisiveness and clarity, which seems to have reinvigorated the company in several respects.

What’s also interesting is that these changes internally are mirrored in a different way externally in Google’s increasing marketing polish and sophistication. Google’s consumer-facing TV commercials are an example — in particular its recent Muppet-themed TV promotion of Google+:

The commercial is not only clever it was likely expensive to produce. Google had to obtain the rights to the Queen-David Bowie song “Under Pressure” and gain agreement from Disney for use of the Muppets in the spot. It’s also not something that one would have imagined from Google as recently as a couple of years ago and reflects a philosophical shift toward consumer marketing. We can see it in the way Google is now marketing Android too.

Having said all that, Page still faces many challenges and the road ahead is lined with legal potholes. Indeed, Page is under more legal pressure, so to speak, than was his predecessor Eric Schmidt. And 2012 should bring some of that to a head, at least in Europe.

Yet, so far, Page’s tenure has been impressive. In less than a year, he has managed to accomplish almost everything he set out to do.

Google Buys Clever Sense: An Answer To Siri?

Greg Sterling — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:38:14 +0000

As is being widely reported Google has bought startup Clever Sense, which earlier this year launched the local-mobile recommendations app Alfred. Alfred is like “Pandora for the real world” and was dedicated to creating a comprehensive “interest graph.” Clever Sense assigns or maps physical places to one another based on styles, characteristics and attributes in the same way that Pandora does for music. However this process is all done by “artificial intelligence.”

Here’s how Clever Sense itself described the functionality behind Alfred:

The Extraction Engine built into the Clever Sense Platform curates large amounts of unstructured crawled data by leveraging natural language processing, statistical machine learning, and data mining algorithms.

As it reads through the data, the Extraction Engine learns meaningful concepts that are descriptive of physical items in the real world. These concepts constitute the foundation of the Clever Sense Interest Graph. The engine further leverages social interactions like check-ins, likes, and ratings to enrich the Interest Graph. It calculates similarities via graph-based algorithms using these social interactions.

Before the launch of Alfred earlier this year I spoke at some length with CEO Babak Pahlava. It’s not clear how much traction the app itself had prior to the acquisition. The local space is pretty noisy and my guess is that Alfred was struggling to get attention; it had recently been redesigned.

The technology that Google is getting from Clever Sense (and the people) will greatly enhance its local recommendations capabilities, which are fairly embryonic. Google clearly sees personalized local recommendations as an important part of its local product(s) going forward. Google+ may also figuring increasingly into this project as well.

There’s a way that Clever Sense may also become part of Google’s answer to Siri, which is a natural language understanding technology (rather than a pure voice search tool). This probably isn’t the primary motivation but perhaps be one of the “top three.”

The video below describes Clever Sense more (the app was called Seymour then):

Click here to view the embedded video.

Our past story, Clever Sense: A Mobile Search Engine That’s Like “Pandora For The Real World”, also covers it more.

Google Acquires Katango ‘Magicians’ To Improve Google+ Circles

Matt McGee — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 23:40:32 +0000

Finding it too much hassle to organize your friends and contacts into circles on Google+? Google may have a solution on the way, thanks to the company’s acquisition of Katango.

Katango launched this past summer with an iPhone app that automagically organizes Facebook friends through an algorithmic approach that looks at profile information, past interactions with friends and the interactions friends have with each other.

Google+ Product VP Bradley Horowitz just confirmed the acquisition in a post on Google+, saying

In the earliest days of Google+, I alluded to the fact that we had big plans for Circles. Are you ready for some magic in your Circles? These folks are magicians!

Katango’s website also confirms the deal; it now redirects to a page on Amazon’s servers with this message:

Katango was founded a little over a year ago to develop social algorithms that improve people’s online social interaction. We’re excited to join the Google+ team and carry on fulfilling that mission. Google+ is seeing tremendous momentum, so it’s a perfect time to join and make Circles smarter for millions of people.

While Google heralded the Circles feature as a key element separating Google+ from Facebook and other social networks, some users and critics found Circles too laborious to use. Slate’s Farhad Manjoo, for example, likened using Google+ Circles to arranging seating charts for a wedding. “And take my word for it: After you do it for your wedding, you’ll never want to do it again,” he said.

If Katango’s technology can solve (or reduce) that friction — and some have been very bullish on its capabilities — then Google may have just made a very smart buy.

Google Travel Search Takes Flight With First ITA Travel Product

Greg Sterling — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 18:00:26 +0000

Google has made what amounts to a promising downpayment on more ambitious travel search tools with its new Flight Search, debuting today. Launching initially for a select group of US cities Google users will have access to an expanded range of airline search options and a much more verticalized experience than has been available in the past on Google.

This is the first product to emerge from Google’s controversial acquisition of travel software company ITA, which closed in April and included concessions and guarantees to existing ITA customers such as Kayak, Microsoft, Orbitz, Hotwire and TripAdvisor. The past five months have been spent on integration of the ITA team and technology in Boston.

This Flight Search beta product breaks no new ground for online travel but points the way toward something more ambitious for Google. The company hinted at that more ambitious product vision in the blog post that announced the acquisition in July 2010:

[W]e think there is room for more competition and greater innovation. Google has already come up with new ways to organize hard-to-find information like images, newspaper archives, scholarly papers, books and geographic data. Once we’ve completed our acquisition of ITA, we’ll work on creating new flight search tools that will make it easier for you to search for flights, compare flight options and prices and get you quickly to a site where you can buy your ticket.

Presented in a way that is similar to Google’s current recipe-search tools and UI, a query such as “flights from sf to nyc” will trigger the appearance of a “flights” filter in the left column. That in turn leads to a more “vertical” experience that enables users to search for flights in a variety of different ways.

Below is a screen showing the new flight results page. Fliters on the left allow for refinement of the search by airline, loyalty program, number of stops and so on (not unlike what already exists at many competing travel sites). Users can manipulate dates, flight duration and pricing. They can aslso search for available flights based on destination and budget, a la Travel Muse.

Once an outbound and return flight are selected — there are no one-way or multi-city capabilities right now — users are taken to an airline website to book. The content presented in Flight Search results is all organic. However, as the image below indicates, the booking link is or could be an ad. According to Google this is the only advertising in Flight Search.

Google said it’s still experimenting with the model. It’s not entirely clear what would happen if the selected airline were not an advertiser. Are only advertiser flights being included in the data presented? I assume not. However when most travel sites such as Kayak or Orbitz deliver a user to an airline or hotel site there’s lead-gen fee or bounty paid. And Google may have struck agreements with all the major carriers accordingly.

As the screens above indicate a map figures prominently in the UI. However Google isn’t using Street View or integrating hotel search or its local business database (including reviews) into the product. That’s the opportunity in one sense: to fully leverage Google’s database and existing products to create totally new travel planning tools and user experiences. This is the “promise” of the ITA acquisition.

However Google famously refuses to discuss future plans. Indeed, Google won’t say anything beyond the fact that Google Flight Search is a first step and that it will improve over time. ITA’s “matrix search” may hold some clues to the future of Google Flight and Travel search products:

Geo Search – search by airport code, city, or nearby airport selector
Event Finder – plan your trip with a listing of events and things to do
Interactive Calendar – explore date ranges and find the lowest fares
Real-time Filters – focus on flights that suit your preferences
Color-coded Time Bars – compare flights at a glance

Along those lines, one can easily imagine many creative and well integrated user experiences that take advantage of Google’s existing assets. Bing Visual Search for Travel is an example of a creative use of search, content and images for travel planning.

Right now Google Flight Search is a useful, if limited, tool. But absent some of the novel and creative innovations I allude to above, it doesn’t really put pressure on any of the established travel search brands or OTAs. Over time, that could change of course.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Google Buys Zagat Ratings, Rocks Local

Greg Sterling — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 15:29:09 +0000

Google is buying the venerable Zagat survey, which is the original local reviews provider and has been in business for more than 30 years. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. Rumor had it that Zagat has been “on the block” for some time, as the company increasingly struggles to compete in a world that has moved away from print.

This is huge news for Google (capital “H”) and for local. Google is a content publisher now and the content that Zagat brings arguably closes the gap between Google Places and Yelp. We’ll have to see the implementation.

Zagat’s subscription-based business model has enjoyed some success online but increasingly the company has been overshadowed by competitors like Yelp. Speaking of which, Google recently purged almost all non-Google reviews from Places profile pages after consistent complaints from Yelp and other publishers such as TripAdvisor. Now the company has a huge cache of user reviews to replace those that were “lost” in the move — and otherwise beef up its local content.

Beyond restaurants, Zagat also offers ratings and revenues of entertainment venues, wine and travel. The online version of the site has developed a community as well; so there’s a social networking dimension to this acquisition as well as content that Google is buying.

Zagat co-founders Tim and Nina Zagat said that they “will continue to be active in the business as co-Chairs, however, the merger of our resources, expertise and platforms with those of Google will give us the opportunity to greatly expand.”

There are now several questions that we’ll ask Google about when we speak to them later:

The majority of Zagat’s business and revenue is still tied up in print publishing and physical books. Will Google continue to publish the books?
Will Google eliminate the subscription part of Zagat’s site and make it free? If it doesn’t formally eliminate the subscription business it will probably, effectively make all Zagat’s reviews free because it will likely import all those reviews into Places.
Will Google preserve the Zagat brand and survey? At least in the near term I would assume that it must.

Google said in its blog post that “Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering.” Indeed. In the world of local I don’t think one can overstate the significance of this acquisition for Google and the segment as a whole.

Postscript: I spoke with Google’s Marissa Mayer and Tim Zagat. They told me that nothing would change in the near term; Google will continue to publish the guides and maintain the subscription product. I asked if Zagat reviews would be imported into Google Places and Google’s response was non-committal. Of course they will; that’s the point of this transaction: the content.

Tim Zagat made the point that Zagat’s reviews are of higher quality and more trustworthy than other sources out there. These are verified users and edited/curated reviews. The quality (as well as the volume) of the content is clearly one of the most appealing things here for Google.

As I said above, it will be very interesting to see what Google does with the Zagat brand over time.

Postscript II: As Gary Price reminds me Zagat has done some content distribution deals. How will those fare in the future? We won’t know for some time.

Postscript III: Here’s Yelp’s Luther Lowe’s response to the announcement:

China: Not So Fast “Googlerola”

Greg Sterling — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 22:10:20 +0000

Major international mergers and acquisitions typically must be approved by regulators in multiple jurisdictions before they can be consummated. As a practical matter this has historically meant North America and Europe for most Western companies. But as more US-based and European companies expand into China the Chinese government is increasingly getting in on the action.

It seems that Google has so far has neglected to inform Chinese regulators of its intention to buy Motorola (for $12.5 billion) and seek their approval accordingly. Reuters explains that “under Chinese laws, enterprises that run businesses in China and that earn annual revenues of 10 billion yuan ($1.55 billion) globally and 400 million yuan in China must seek government approval for a proposed acquisition.”

This was an oversight clearly and Google will likely rectify it in short order.

In the recent past Google has been ambivalent about China and struggled to remain there while remaining true to its principles. However would-be Google division Motorola has aggressively embraced the Chinese market and enjoyed success there.

When Google got into conflict with China over Gmail hacking last year and threatened to exit the country over its censorship rules Motorola didn’t miss a beat and said it would use Bing as the default search engine on its smartphones in China. The following statement was from a March 2010 Motorola press release:

Motorola, Inc. today announced a global alliance with Microsoft Corp. to deploy Bing services on Motorola devices powered by Android. This new offering, launching in China on smartphones in Q1, will provide consumers a choice when using search and map functions on their Android-based devices. With this collaboration, consumers will enjoy a pre-loaded Bing bookmark on their mobile browser and an enhanced search widget with Bing integration . . .

Obviously Motorola’s relationship with Microsoft will change should the “Googlerola” acquisition be approved. And, if so, it wouldn’t surprise me if future Android smartphones in China said bye-bye to Bing.

Google & Motorola Mobility: The What’s It All Mean Edition

Danny Sullivan — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 01:01:42 +0000

What a way to start the week. The company that once said it would never build its own mobile phones, Google, wants to buy mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility. The technosphere has gone into 5G coverage over the news. Here’s what I’ve been finding interesting and some thoughts.

Patent Protection

A big part of this is about patents. You might recall two weeks ago that Google make a big stink that Microsoft and Apple were, in Google’s view, trying to chop off Android’s big head with a patent guillotine. Our background coverage, on that:

Picking up Motorola means that Google picks up Motorola’s patents, as Google highlighted in its blog post today:

Our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google’s patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies.

More on this came out in the conference call from Google and Motorola on the news, as reported by AllThingsD, where Motorola talked of having 17,000 patents and another 7,500 pending. Apparently, Google believes that by owning these patents, it will be better able to extend protection over the entire Android ecosystem.

By the way, Samsung has 37,000 mobile patents, followed by LG with 31,000, then Motorola, according to a Piper Jaffray chart that eWeek has here.

Mama Bear Google & Her Android Cubs

To my understanding, neither Microsoft nor Apple has actually sued Google itself over over whether Android violates their patents on mobile devices. Rather, those companies have gone after hardware manufacturers, either with actual lawsuits (Apple versus Samsung; Apple versus HTC) or demanding licensing fees (Microsoft versus HTC).

Google, which views Apple and Microsoft as effectively bullying its Android “children” now might be stepping forward to say that if you’re messing with its baby bears, you’re going to have to face mama bear Google.

Maybe that will work. Maybe it won’t. One thing’s for certain. Those Motorola patents didn’t cower Microsoft away from suing Motorola over Android back in October. Foss Patents has some further background here. Now Google’s going to inherit that suit.

If Google should win, potentially HTC might question the agreement it struck with Microsoft over patents and try to get out of that, if it could. Other Android handset makers would no doubt take heart from any victory. This would also go to support Google’s suggestion that the Motorola deal really is about helping the entire Android ecosystem.

Should Google lose, potentially it harms Android greatly — because if mama bear can’t win, the baby bears are toast.

Baby Bears: We Love You Mama (Don’t Hurt Us!)

Google’s major Android partners are all happy with this move! After all, Google’s lined up statements from them all that say so:

“We welcome today’s news, which demonstrates Google’s deep commitment to defending Android, its partners, and the ecosystem.” –Samsung

“I welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.” –Sony Ericsson

“We welcome the news of today‘s acquisition, which demonstrates that Google is deeply committed to defending Android, its partners, and the entire ecosystem.” –HTC

“We welcome Google‘s commitment to defending Android and its partners.” –LG

Then again, what would you expect these companies, which have so much invested in Android for their future, to say? By and large, these statements mean nothing. Actions in the coming weeks and months will speak much more loudly.

Microsoft As The Independent OS?

One of those actions, ironically, could be to strengthen the prospects for the Windows Phone mobile operating system.

If you’re a handset maker looking for a mobile OS, you’re not going to get it from Apple. Now, you may feel less comfortable banking on Google. Sure, you’ve got a few other options like potentially webOS from HP. But Microsoft will be the lone big player not actually making handsets. As AllThingsD quotes Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg:

“There’s no doubt they are going to have to give Windows Phone more serious consideration than they ever would before,” Gartner analyst Michael Gartenberg told AllThingsD. “On the other hand, they are still smarting from the Nokia deal. But at least Microsoft hasn’t taken that final step of going into the hardware business themselves.

Ah, yes, Nokia. The company that Microsoft did a billions-dollar deal with earlier this year, to get it to go all Windows Phone-specific. Good deal for Nokia, as the company restated today at GigaOM:

This further reinforces our belief that opportunities for the growth of Nokia’s smartphone business will be greatest with Windows Phone. This could prove to be a massive catalyst for the Windows Phone ecosystem. Additionally, with our respective intellectual property portfolios, Nokia and Microsoft are working together to build and nurture an innovative ecosystem that benefits consumers, operators, developers and other device manufacturers.

Then again, it’s hard to think that other hardware manufacturers, watching Nokia effectively having been turned into Microsoft’s phone division in all but name, might feel that’s reassuring for them.

More likely, they’re now weighing up what’s the best of bad situation.

Does Open Mean Not Playing Favorites?

Of course, Google itself would decry any suggestion that Android isn’t open. Saying that Microsoft’s mobile OS is “open” in any way would likely cause some at Google to turn red in outrage.

But what exactly is open? If open means that you put a version of your software out whenever you want, for others to use however they want, I suppose Android wins.

Android doesn’t look so open when it means that some hardware makers get the latest edition ahead of others (Android 3.0 with Motorola; TidBits has some nice history here) or when you suggest that Android really isn’t Android unless Google seems to decide it is, as in the Skyhook case.

If you’re a handset maker, open probably is far better defined as whether an OS doesn’t appear to have favorites. Apple’s clearly does: Apple. Google seems likely to favor Motorola. Microsoft seems likely to favor Nokia.

Microsoft Made Us Do It!

For its part, Google might try to reassure nervous partners that it had no choice but to try for Motorola. After all, as GigaOm reports, Microsoft was apparently interested:

Our sources say that Motorola was in acquisition talks with several parties, including Microsoft for quite some time. Microsoft was interested in acquiring Motorola’s patent portfolio that would have allowed it to torpedo Android even further. The possibility of that deal brought Google to the negotiation table, resulting in the blockbuster sale.

Of course, more reassuring might be that Google gets the patents, then strikes an agreement to license them out to anyone doing Android — or pledges only to use them for defense — or some other clever “look, we’re really just interested in the patents for protection” move. All that, along with spinning Motorola back out as a truly separate company.

Will Google Treat All Its Baby Bears The Same?

Google is already trying to reassure that all Android makers will get treated the same. From its blog post:

This acquisition will not change our commitment to run Android as an open platform. Motorola will remain a licensee of Android and Android will remain open. We will run Motorola as a separate business. Many hardware partners have contributed to Android’s success and we look forward to continuing to work with all of them to deliver outstanding user experiences.

Maybe this really will happen, that Motorola will be so independent of Google that Motorola will complain that Samsung or HTC seem to have gained some special favor.

I wouldn’t count on it. It just seems a difficult juggling act to pull off. Plus, this quote from mocoNews really stuck in my head:

A source familiar with Google’s strategy during the Nortel patent auctions told me weeks ago that Google couldn’t quite bring itself to see a patent portfolio as valuable as an actual company with skilled people.

Arguments that it’s just about the patents and Motorola will be off in its own Motorola corner seem short-sighted. That’s especially so when you go back to Google’s own blog post:

Motorola’s total commitment to Android in mobile devices is one of many reasons that there is a natural fit between our two companies. Together, we will create amazing user experiences that supercharge the entire Android ecosystem for the benefit of consumers, partners and developers everywhere.

How do you create amazing user experiences with a company that supposedly is a separate business? Why can’t you do that with it being just a separate business?

Google: The Nexus Program Plays Fair!

As proof that no one will get favored, during the conference call today, Google talked about something I’d never heard about before — that the Nexus One and the Nexus S were all part of a Nexus “lead device” strategy that sort of rotates to different handset makers.

Android And Me quotes Google’s mobile chief Andy Rubin from the call (audio here from The Verge):

We have this strategy where we have this Nexus program, and we have this lead device strategy. That strategy has worked quite well to help focus the team. What we do is that we select each — around Christmastime of each year — we select a manufacturer that we work very closely with to release a device in that time frame.

I was at the Nexus One press conference in January 2010, where that HTC device — Google’s first “Google phone” handset — was launched. There was no talk about a strategy like this then, that I recall. If anything, when Google abandoned Nexus One direct sales a few months later, it seemed like there would never be a Nexus Two.

Of course, by December 2010, we got the Nexus S — and in the announcement, there is talk of it being the “lead device” for Android 2.3. But there was no particular mention of Samsung having competed for this honor, or that it was somehow Samsung’s “turn” to get it.

Google: Your Next Consumer Electronics Company?

Perhaps the most compelling for Google integrating more tightly with Motorola are suggestions that Google is looking at the huge profits (even bigger than Google’s) that Apple is generating and thinking it might be even more successful if it did its own hardware.

Computerworld reports Ticonderoga Securities analytic Brian White saying:

“This will let Google control the total user experience, just as Apple does,” said White.

I saw another analyst echoing similar comments. Sorry, I can’t recall or find which one, but they talked about Apple passing Exxon to become the most valuable public company and whether Google, looking at Apple’s tight integration, might feel it needs to do the same.

Certainly Google has both a mobile operating system (Android to Apple iOS) and desktop operating system (Chrome OS to MacOS) to match Apple. But unlike Apple, Google doesn’t do hardware. Motorola corrects that.

Motorola would give Google its own directly controlled devices, if it wants them, in the smartphone and tablet spaces. Motorola doesn’t do laptops, though potentially it could expand here. There’s also the cablebox / DVR space that some are saying might be a boost for Google TV.

I kind of doubt that. Google TV already has tight, useful integration with Dish TV, but that hasn’t helped. Currently, Google TV is a dog of a product for several reasons. Maybe in time, it’ll get there.

Overall, Google’s been kind of schizophrenic on the hardware-software integration aspect. Apple’s bad because it controls its devices so closely, both hardware and software. Google’s good, because it allows anyone to add “value” to its devices.

But Apple’s “closed” system makes for generally beautiful devices (unless you want Amazon or Hulu on your Apple TV). And Google’s “open” system leads to fragmentation where you never quite know what a device is going to do, even if it’s running Android.

Google’s acknowledged the fragmentation issue but largely written that off as a problem, unless — this is the schizophrenic part — it’s over some “compatibility” issue as with Skyhook.

Potentially, the Motorola deal lets Google move ahead on a path it might begin to believe is best: that to fully fight against a “closed” world that it believes Apple propagates, Google needs to have, ironically, a closed device loop of its own.

Perhaps that’s not the main thinking now. Perhaps it’s not even a thought now. But Google’s considered hardware before, and it will no doubt think about it again. When it does, this time, it’ll own a hardware company.

What About Anti-Trust Issues?

Of course, none of this will happen unless the deal is approved by various regulators, including in the US and the EU. Google’s already under investigation over anti-trust issues in both countries. Surely, this will just make matters worse and not be allowed.

Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows? I don’t. I’m not an anti-trust expert. But to say on the surface that Google can’t have a mobile operating system and also be a handset maker doesn’t make sense. Apple does this. Heck, you can’t favor yourself over other handset makers more than Apple does. It doesn’t allow any others to use its OS.

There’s going to be a huge difference between whether Google lives up to really providing an “open” OS in terms of what it promises and whether that’s anything to do with running into anti-trust issues.

Maybe, as Foss Patents touches on, there will be issues on whether Google uses money from one of its businesses to somehow unfairly prop up its “free” hardware business.

Maybe. But as I covered in my The Growing Portrait Of Google As A Big, Scary, Expanding Everywhere Copy Monster piece last week, you could make these arguments about Microsoft and Apple, as well.

For me, the bigger issue is likely whether Google ends up closing the loop too much. Will Google’s moves be seen as linking everything it does — search, ads, mobile, hardware and so on — in a way to prevent competition?

Potentially, especially at a time when Google is viewed by some as being too big. But then again, it also faces the very big company of Apple and the still sizable company of Microsoft. It’s hard to argue that all these players aren’t competing with each other, and fiercely.

Frankly, I’m less worried that they need protection from each other and more worried that we as consumers need more protection from them. Or perhaps more rights to protect our choices on devices that are, after all, ours.

For related news across the web on this topic, see Techmeme. For related stories from Search Engine Land, see below.

In Antitrust “Complaint Du Jour” French Daily Deals Company Files Claim Against Google

Greg Sterling — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 13:42:29 +0000

In what is becoming a steady parade of antitrust claims against Google in Europe, another complaint has been filed by a French company. This latest (10th) antitrust complaint was filed with the European Commission by a French daily deals site called “Deal du Jour.” The company claims “Google illegally removed its site from its web index without any justification [and] blocked it from using its Adsense advertising service,” according to Reuters.

(See postscripts below for clarification on the nature of the claims from the company.)

I haven’t read the complaint or have factual information beyond what is described in the Reuters story. However on their face there’s a good deal about the claims that don’t seem to hold up.

The argument goes: Google doesn’t want to show “Deal du Jour’s” site in search results or allow it to market through AdSense because Google is now in the deals business (with Offers and its recent purchase of The Dealmap) and wants to marginalize or eliminate competitors. Yet a quick search for “les deals,” “deal du jour” or any number of variations on those queries on Google.fr shows that’s not true.

Any deal-related query yields dozens of deal sites operating in France. The image below is from the results for a query for “deals du jour Paris“:

There’s nothing special about Deal du Jour. It’s merely one of numerous daily deal sites operating in France. Better known competitors such as Groupon.fr, LivingSocial, Facebook, kgb and many others are all present and readily discoverable in organic results.

If Google wanted to be “anti-competitive” why would Google block Deal du Jour vs Groupon.fr or numerous other more visible or formidable daily deal competitors? It doesn’t really withstand logic.

Regardless of its merits, the Deal du Jour complaint is unlikely to be the last filed against Google. I suspect that other companies will emerge and add their frustrations to the chorus of complaints before the European Commission has finished its antitrust investigation.

Postscript: I received an email from the company that said the dispute actually involves a trademark claim regarding use of the term “deal du jour.” Here’s the unedited, verbatim email:

Thank you for your article about Deal du Jour against Google, but please i want tell you your article not describe the real deal issue, Google is blocking us since we have claimed our valid Trademark rights to block in adwords Annonces the Words ” Deal du Jour ” ( only at the text not at the keywords ) this is our right as million of companys have this rights ! In revanch of this Google is deleting us from the Index and block our Adwords Annonces ! So think about how anti competitive is that ! For that and only for that reason we have complaint to the EU and the FTC.

Postscript II: It turns out that the nature of the complaint is very different than it appears in the Reuters story, which did a poor job of laying out the company’s claims against Google. I’ve had several email interactions with Deal du Jour now and now have a better understanding of the nature their claim.

Deal du Jour says it owns the trademark to “Deal du Jour” (deal of the day) in France. The company made a complaint to Google in June regarding use of the phrase “Deal du Jour” in AdWords text by other French companies. According to Deal du Jour Google disputed the validity of the trademark. Deal du Jour told me in email, “Google . . . decline our request with the words your trademarks are generic and not valid.”

The company’s anti-competition claim involves alleged retaliation by Google over this trademark-related complaint.

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Google Receives DOJ Request for Additional Info On AdMeld Buy

Pamela Parker — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 23:48:08 +0000

Google has acknowledged receiving a “second request” for additional information from the Department of Justice, as it continues to review whether the company’s planned purchase of AdMeld would impede competition in the space.

In a blog post, Neil Mohan, VP of display advertising, noted: “This doesn’t surprise us, as today’s display advertising industry is very new and highly complex.”

The company used the opportunity to trot out its arguments on why it believes there’s plenty of competition in display advertising, implying that the DOJ should approve the transaction.

Mohan wrote that buyers and sellers of display ads have a wide variety of ways to conduct sales, through direct sales, networks, exhanges, demand and supply platforms and private exchanges. Google even produced a handy PDF of quotes collected from the media, including comments from competitors, agencies and publishers. Bravado by competitors claiming not to be concerned about Google’s entry into the publisher optimization space should perhaps be taken with a grain of sale, however.

Google announced its planned acquisition of AdMeld, for a reported $400 million, in mid-June. We reported on the DOJ review later that week.