Given Nextag’s Lack Of Transparency, Its WSJ Opinion Piece Asking For Google Transparency Isn’t Wise

Jun 8, 2012 at 1:41pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Nextag CEO Jeffrey Katz is out today in the Wall Street Journal with an opinion piece taking Google to task over a lack of transparency and fairness. Perhaps it's not the smartest move, given that all his arguments can be neatly turned back against Nextag. Moreover, unlike Google, NexTag is probably in violation of US Federal Trade Commission guidelines on consumer disclosure. Getting 65% Of Your Traffic From Google Is A Stacked Deck? Let's do the dissection. Writes Katz: At my company, Nextag, a comparison shopping site for products and services, we regularly analyze the level of search tr [...]

EU Offers To Settle With Google Over Anti-Trust Claims

May 21, 2012 at 11:04am ET by Greg Sterling

European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia issued a statement this morning offering "preliminary conclusions" of the EU's investigation of numerous antitrust complaints against Google. It lays out "concerns" about Google's market power in four areas. Almunia acknowledges Google's prior statements about a willingness to settle and suggests that if a settlement can be reached Europe and Google will be able to put the matter behind them: I believe that these fast-moving markets would particularly benefit from a quick resolution of the competition issues identified. Restoring competit [...]

How “Facebook Search” Could Help Google Escape The Antitrust Noose

Apr 8, 2012 at 11:20am ET by Greg Sterling

Last week in the Chicago Tribune former judge and scholar Robert Bork (who is also a Google advisor) penned an opinion column arguing that by the accepted standards of antitrust law Google has done nothing legally wrong. Bork says, "There is extraordinary competition in the search engine business. Look at the proliferation of what are called vertical search sites that specialize in particular products or services, such as Amazon, Expedia, Kayak and hundreds of others." Who Competes with Google? This question of who competes with Google -- and is the market in fact competitive -- is central t [...]

Looking Back At Larry Page’s First Year At Google’s Helm

Apr 4, 2012 at 3:02pm ET by Greg Sterling

Two articles appeared today that reflect on the first year of Larry Page's return to the CEO role at Google. Bloomberg's Brad Stone does a Q&A with Page in which he discusses the larger competitive challenges Google faces and some of his management philosophy. The other piece is from Wired writer Steven Levy and is a bit of a counterpoint to the mostly upbeat Bloomberg story. Stone declines to query Page about privacy, antitrust and Google's myriad problems with regulators and governments around the world. In his answers about a range of issues, Page is confident and seemingly reflectiv [...]

TheFind Joins FairSearch.org To “Restore Balance” To The Search Marketplace

Mar 15, 2012 at 10:06am ET by Greg Sterling

In this corner is Google, about to make "major changes" to its algorithm and presentation of search results according to a much-discussed article in the Wall Street Journal. In the other are Google's critics who now scrutinize and critique the company's every move. The WSJ-Google article speaks about new innovations to search in an effort to deliver more "semantic" answers (not links). Yet critics will see anti-competitive behavior intended to maintain Google's dominant position and undermine smaller firms. FairSearch.org has emerged as one of Google's most vocal critics. Established in 201 [...]

Keeping Up With Google: Bing Launches New “Search Quality Insights” Series

Mar 5, 2012 at 1:55pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Want to understand better how Bing creates its search results? Bing has announced a new "Search Quality Insights" series to provide a more behind-the-scenes look at its search engine. You know, like "Search Quality Highlights" series that Google launched last December. What's going on with these? And how does Bing's latest post help Google on anti-trust grounds? Google Seeks Transparency In Google's case, I view the Search Quality Highlights series as Google trying to deal with accusations, especially by those on the anti-trust front but even from places like the New York Times, that Google [...]

FairSearch.org Introduces Anti-Google “Good To Know” Ad Campaign

Jan 26, 2012 at 9:35am ET by Greg Sterling

FairSearch.org, a consortium of companies that originally came together to oppose the Google acquisition of ITA and includes Tavelocity, Microsoft and TripAdvisor among others, has added several new members to its ranks and launched an anti-Google print-ad campaign. Entitled "Good to Know," the ads seek to expose "truths" about Google and its alleged conflicts of interest. The ads argue that Google unfairly promotes its own products, delivers search results that aren't objective or in the best interests of users and doesn't respect user privacy. The ads assert that they're telling the publi [...]

A Proposal For Social Network Détente

Jan 23, 2012 at 10:15pm ET by Danny Sullivan

For the past two weeks, I feel like I've been witnessing some type of Cuban Missile Crisis going on between Google, Twitter and Facebook. I'd like to suggest some ways that social-nuclear war might be averted. Beyond Blame, Believing In Cooperation Let's set aside blame, because blame isn't going to move anything forward. Let's also assume that all the players can be taken to some degree at their word, that they do indeed want to work together in some ways. What does everyone want? The Wants & A Game Changer Google has wanted its own social graph for some time. By social graph, I [...]

“Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+

Jan 23, 2012 at 9:01am ET by Danny Sullivan

I've written that Google has plenty of public data to allow parts its new Search Plus Your World feature to be inclusive of rival social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Now, those networks are proving that true, through a new "Don't Be Evil" tool that lets anyone leverage Google's own results to see this. The tool -- a bookmarklet that works in your browser -- changes three parts of Search Plus Your World that currently shows information only from Google Plus. These are: People & Pages results Google+ Sitelinks Google+ Suggestions In Autocomplete The tool can be found on [...]

Report: FTC Expanding Anti-Trust Investigation Of Google To Include Google+

Jan 13, 2012 at 5:55pm ET by Pamela Parker

The wide-ranging Federal Trade Commission investigation into Google's potential anti-competitive practices has been expanded to include its Google+ social networking service, according to a Bloomberg report citing "people familiar with the situation." The news is likely to please critics like the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), which earlier this week called for the FTC to investigate the recent search changes called Search Plus Your World. Besides EPIC, many others, including Twitter, have questioned whether the new features favor Google's own services over those of competito [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Antitrust | Google: Legal | Top News

To Understand Google Favoritism, Think “If Google+ Were YouTube”

Jan 12, 2012 at 2:17pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Google's favoritism of Google+ in its new Search Plus results is just the latest in the line of favoritism it has done with vertical search? It's not, because Google hasn't really favored itself with vertical search. It is favoring itself with Google+, and that's why things are so disturbing. Vertical Search Is What Search Engines Should Do Long-time Google-critic and occasional Microsoft consultant Ben Edelman has this out today: I've found more than a dozen Google services receiving favored placement in Google search results. Consider Google Blog Search, Google Book Search, Google Checko [...]

Search Engines Should Be Like Santa From “Miracle On 34th Street”

Jan 10, 2012 at 5:13pm ET by Danny Sullivan

That didn't take long. In my coverage today about the new Google "Search Plus Your World" feature, I detailed how part of it gave hefty ammunition to claims that Google is abusing its dominant position in search. The anti-trust charges have now already started. Here's the short story why. Imagine, Sending People To Other Stores! One of my favorite movies is "Miracle On 34th Street." The original, not the remake, by the way. For those not familiar, Kris Kringle -- the real Santa Claus -- gets hired to play the Macy's Santa Claus. He nearly gets fired when it's discovered that he's sendin [...]

Koreans Accuse Google Of “Obstructing” Antitrust Investigation

Jan 9, 2012 at 9:46am ET by Greg Sterling

According to CNET, Google faces the "maximum potential penalty" for allegedly obstructing South Korea's antitrust investigation against the company. Korean officials "raided" Google's Seoul offices last Fall in connection with an investigation into whether Google was acting in an anti-competitive way toward home-grown Korean search/portal sites on Android devices. (It wasn't the first time for such a "raid" of Google's offices in Korea.) According to the CNET article Korean official Kim Dong-soo asserted that Google has obstructed his agency's investigation "by deleting key files from PCs a [...]

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

Jan 2, 2012 at 10:10am ET by Greg Sterling

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 [...]

Bing’s Travel Search & Kayak Favoritism Angers No One, While Google’s Gets Headline Attention From WSJ

Dec 27, 2011 at 2:03pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Bing's not-so-newest push into online travel hasn't begun to roil the industry, the latest example of where if Bing does something, no one cares, but if Google does it, it's time for a Wall Street Journal story examining the potential evilness of the move. In case you missed it, the Wall Street Journal has a story out about how Google's travel results -- added in September, rather than December as the story says, have upset (as you'd expect) rival travel search engines such as Kayak, Expedia and Orbitz. Bing: Pushing Travel Search Against Google Since 2009 You have to get midway down int [...]

Dear Congress: It’s Not OK Not To Know How Search Engines Work, Either

Dec 20, 2011 at 9:07pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Did watching elected representatives debate SOPA last week without understanding some fundamentals of the internet rattle your nerves? Welcome to my world of watching the same thing happen about Google and search. In September, the US Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights held a hearing called "The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?" Yesterday, the subcommittee released a letter out of that hearing, advising the US Federal Trade Commission to investigate further -- something the FTC was already doing [...]

US Senators Call For FTC Investigation Into Google’s Search Results

Dec 19, 2011 at 6:02pm ET by Matt McGee

US Senators Herb Kohl and Mike Lee are urging the Federal Trade Commission to investigate whether Google unfairly favors its own properties in search results. Kohl and Lee are both members of the Senate's antitrust subcommittee -- that's where Google's Eric Schmidt testified in-person back in September on the same subject -- and have jointly signed a five-page letter to FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz calling for "serious scrutiny" of Google's business practices and, more specifically, if Google's is acting anti-competitively when its own properties are positioned highly in search results. [...]

Banned Holiday Deal Sites Return To Bing

Dec 12, 2011 at 6:22pm ET by Danny Sullivan

Holiday deal sites that Bing banned from its search listings just before the busy shopping days of Black Friday and Cyber Monday have now been allowed to return. They include a site run by the group that created the entire Cyber Monday concept. Banned: Not Your Usual Suspects We reported previously how the sites had gone missing, something Bing described as keeping with long-standing policies against "thin" content but which came out-of-the-blue to some site owners. The banned sites included CyberMonday.com, which is run by Shop.org, the group that created the entire Cyber Monday concep [...]

Google Braces For Early 2012 (400-Page) EU Antitrust Report

Dec 2, 2011 at 9:26am ET by Greg Sterling

According to dealReporter (via the Financial Times), the first stage of the formal European antitrust investigation against Google is almost complete. Google will shortly receive a 400-page "statement of objections" presenting findings from the European Commission's investigation. It will detail Google's alleged "abuse of dominance" and presumably -- this is drawing an inference from the 400 pages -- it will find that there was abuse. The European Commission investigation arose out of formal anti-competition complaints initially filed by three companies: Foundem, eJustice and Ciao (owned b [...]

Bing Bans Holiday Deals Sites, Including One By Group That Created Cyber Monday

Nov 30, 2011 at 9:00am ET by Danny Sullivan

Ironically, the trade group that created the Cyber Monday concept had its own CyberMonday.com site lost in cyberspace this week. Lost, that is, if you tried to use Bing to find it. The site, along with some Black Friday deals sites, have been deliberately dropped from Bing as being too "thin" in content. Bing's Version Of The Google Panda Update If "thin is bad" sounds familiar, that's because Google kicked off this trend earlier this year. The Google Panda Update was a change in how Google ranked web pages, designed to penalize pages deemed to be content-light. Google's change didn't rem [...]

Get Our News, Everywhere!

Follow @sengineland

Got a tip? Tell us here!

Most Likes
Most Tweets
Comments

Our Stories Being Liked on Facebook

Search Engine Land Sponsors

Advertise With Us

Free Daily Search News Recap!

SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update - sign up below and get the news delivered to you!

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

North America

SMX Advanced - June 11-12, 2013
SMX East - Oct. 1-3, 2013
SMX Social Media Marketing - Nov. 20-21, 2013
SMX West - March 11-13, 2014

EMEA

SMX Paris - June 6-7, 2013
SMX Stockholm - Oct. 14-15, 2013
SMX Milan - Nov. 7-8, 2013
SMX Israel - Jan. 2014
SMX Munich - March 25-26, 2014
SMX London - May 2014

APAC

SMX Sydney - April 2014

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.