The report was written by lawyers from the Ammori Group, “a law firm and Internet-law consulting practice whose clients include Google Inc.”

A Shrewd “PR Campaign” by Google

Last week a report by UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh literally made the case that the US First Amendment precludes any claim against Google under antitrust law. That document was structured and read like a formal brief submitted to a court. However the court in this instance is the “court of public opinion” where the “public” consists of policy makers, regulators and legislators.

Google is engaged in what appears to be a very sophisticated and shrewd PR campaign, having lawyers preemptively argue the antitrust issues in public and thereby alert those who would bring formal antitrust claims that their cases are all but sure to fail.

It’s akin to an athlete trying to “psych out” an opponent before a big match. The initiative is intended to create doubt (and fear) among those lawyers who would be on the other side that they risk failure by proceeding against Google. This is not to imply that the substantive legal arguments presented are not persuasive — they are. That’s the point.

If You Can’t Compete … Litigate

The lengthy new document by attorneys Marvin Ammori and Luke Pelican takes principal aim at two related targets: the notion that the public would benefit in any way through regulation of Google and critics’ potential antitrust remedies. It essentially says that Google’s critics are all self-interested competitors arguing the public interest to benefit themselves. However antitrust law doesn’t protect the interests of individual competitors but competition generally to safeguard the public interest:

This article concludes that the cures proposed by the competitors are worse than Google’s alleged disease. The proposed remedies might benefit the short-­term economic of Google’s competitors . . . but benefiting competitors is not the goal of antitrust law. The goal of antitrust law is to promote consumer welfare, competition, and innovation. The proposed remedies, however, would do the opposite: harm consumers, impede competition, and stifle innovation.

The remedies would invite government agencies and technical committees to second-­guess and evaluate both mundane and game-­changing engineering and user-­ interface decisions regarding Google Search, reverse long-­standing fair use principles rooted in constitutional requirements, and empower competitors to litigate rather than compete against daily innovations and disclosures by Google.

Dismantling the Remedies One by One

Using case law and public policy arguments, the Ammori report then lays out and seeks to dismantle each of Google’s critic’s would-be remedies, which the document groups under five headings. Here they are verbatim:

• Search Neutrality: inviting government to second-­guess and reject algorithmic and manual changes to Google Search based on an elusive, ill-defined “neutrality” concept that neither agencies nor technical committees could effectively adjudicate.
• Ten Blue Links, not Universal Search: forbidding Google from presenting answers to search queries as both Google and its largest competitors have done since 2007, with results that deliver a mix of Web links, news links, places, maps, and images, rather than merely providing 10 blue links to Web sites, just as many search engines did years ago.
• Google-­Specific Fair-­Use Limits: forbidding Google from crawling and using others’ Web content while forcing Google to let others crawl and use Google’s content thereby inverting the fair-use doctrine, the trespass-­to-­chattels doctrine, and raising constitutional concerns.
• No Bidding: constraining Google’s ability to compete for acquisitions and exclusive partnerships, harming acquisition targets and consumers while favoring the most deep-­pocketed competitors.
• Continuous Disclosure: requiring numerous ongoing disclosures, many of which Google already provides, and others that would enable spammers to manipulate Google’s search algorithms or empower its less innovative competitors merely to copy new Google products more rapidly.

Regulators Don’t Use “Scarce Resources” on Google

The report begins and concludes with the notion that it’s ultimately a waste of time and scarce resources for regulators (in the US) to pursue an antitrust case against Google:

In short, the FTC has better uses for its scarce resources than pursuing an inquiry or investigation that would merely raise the cost of one rival, Google, for the benefit of other rivals that have proposed unworkable and detrimental remedies for their novel theories of antitrust harm that is effected through “search bias.”

Both the Volokh brief and this new Ammori report are persuasive though I’m not sure they will prevent the FTC from bringing a case against Google. However if it comes, much of the legal research will already have been done.

Who Competes with Google?

This question of who competes with Google — and is the market in fact competitive — is central to the analysis of European and US regulators as the antitrust investigations wind their way through “the system” and potentially to the courts. Google sees many more competitors than do its critics and has been trying for several years to widen the scope of the discussion about “search competition.”

If we open the aperture to include vertical sites with a search box (e.g., Yelp, Kayak, Truila) the world looks a great deal more competitive than if we only look at web search engines, which is what most ordinary consumers think when they hear the term “search engine.”

In the latter category there is Google, Bing, Blekko and DuckDuckGo. Blekko and DDG have negligible share. Bing’s share is an essentially flat 29 percent (when combined with Yahoo). In international markets such as China, Japan and Russia Google is the underdog. However in some markets, in Europe and elsewhere around the world, Google’s share of search is larger than in the US.

66 Percent or 83 Percent?

In contrast to the comScore data immediately above, the Pew Internet & American Life Project recently found that Google was the preferred search engine of 83 percent of US survey respondents. Based on a survey of roughly 2,200 US adults, Pew observed that “Fully 83% of searchers use Google more often than any other search engine.  Yahoo is a very distant second at just 6%.”

Many regulators and political officials, encouraged by anti-Google lobbying from rivals, have concluded that Google is simply too powerful and has too much control over the online ecosystem. Whether there are legal grounds for a finding of antitrust liability against Google is a different matter, but I do believe the Europeans will bring some kind of anti-competition case against the company. In addition, the various investigations going on at the federal and state levels against Google could also result in an action in the US.

This is where Facebook comes in.

Specter of Facebook Search Helps Google

The idea that Facebook is developing a search engine that might attract some usage away from Google is precisely the kind of development that could save Google’s bacon — so to speak. The “everyone competes against us” defense that appears in the Bork article and that Google has floated several times is unlikely to be persuasive. What will be much more persuasive is the argument that the world’s largest social network will be bringing search to its 900+ million users around the globe.

Recall when the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) was deciding whether to approve or block Google’s proposed $750 million acquisition of AdMob two years ago. I was one of the many dozens of people interviewed by regulators on the matter. My inference from the interview process and questions I received was that the FTC was predisposed to block the deal. Indeed, from all accounts it appeared that the FTC was going to file suit against the Google acquisition — until Apple bought Quattro Wireless.

Here’s an excerpt from the FTC’s public statement about its decision not to attempt to block the acquisition, explicitly citing Quattro as the basis of its rationale:

The Federal Trade Commission has closed its investigation of Google’s proposed acquisition of mobile advertising network company AdMob after thoroughly reviewing the deal and concluding that it is unlikely to harm competition in the emerging market for mobile advertising networks.

In a statement issued today, the Commission said that although the combination of the two leading mobile advertising networks raised serious antitrust issues, the agency’s concerns ultimately were overshadowed by recent developments in the market, most notably a move by Apple Computer Inc. – the maker of the iPhone – to launch its own, competing mobile ad network.

Facebook Like Apple for Google’s Legal Team

The FTC probably decided not that the market would actually be more competitive but that Apple buying Quattro had complicated its arguments and weakened its case.

Facebook is now analogous to Apple in that it provides a potential argument that the search market is competitive, and soon could be come more so if the company launches an improved search capability (whether for site search or the web more broadly). Indeed, Google’s legal team will wave the BusinessWeek article as evidence that the search market is highly dynamic, unpredictable and could change overnight.

And that might be just what Google needs to escape the antitrust noose.

Google’s taken flak over the past year from critics about how the company has been integrating actions such as booking flights or hotels into its search results. It’s also faced criticisms that it is leveraging its search dominance to build its Google+ social network. I found it notable that Google CEO Larry Page, in his “2012 Update from the CEO“ letter, essentially pushed back against both criticisms.

Page doesn’t say he’s attacking these criticisms in the update. That’s my own reading between-the-lines. But nothing in the letter would have been presented without a good reason. I think both areas got addressed as part of Google’s continued positioning that what it’s doing with Google+ and with task completion isn’t polluting its search results nor acting anti-competitively but rather simply evolving search.

Google’s Push With Google+

Google’s held nothing back in trying to make Google+ successful. The company, which used to never advertise on television, now routinely seems to have commercials pushing its social network. Speaking of pushing, in January, as part of Search Plus Your World, it pushed its own ads further down in its search results to allow for a “People and Pages on Google+” box to appear.

Those are just two examples among many where Google has been putting its weight behind Google+. But doing this has opened it up to some accusations. Is Google using its dominance in search to unfairly jumpstart its own social network? Is Google ruining its search results by shoving too much Google+ content within them?

The head of Google’s search efforts, Amit Singhal, has previously argued that Google+ is an important part of advancing Google’s search quality. I believe he’s generally right.

Both Google and Bing are using social signals — and need to use them — as a way to further improve results. My story from February, When Everyone Gets The Vote: Social Shares As The New Link Building, explains more about this and the challenge in getting the balance right.

Google+ Needed To Improve Search

Page’s letter adds a further defense. He wrote:

Understanding identity and relationships can also help us improve search.

In other words, for Google to improve, it needs to understand who people really are on the web, plus what they care about. That’s where Google+ comes in, a way for it to better understand relationships as well as who is authoring content. Google had such profiles even before Google+ existed, and Google+ is a continuation of this.

Expect this also to be used as a defense of why Google+ need to exist regardless of players like Facebook or Twitter. Page is reemphasizing that profiles are part of search. They’re not just some social add-on. They’re a key ingredient that any search engine needs.

Fear Not The Personalization

Page also pushes back on concerns about personalization:

Imagine how much better search would be if we added… you. Say you’ve been studying computer science for awhile like me, then the information you need won’t be that helpful to a relative novice and vice versa. If you’re searching for a particular person, you want the results for that person—not everyone else with the same name. These are hard problems to solve without knowing your identity, your interests, or the people you care about.

Recall that we just had a survey showing that Americans apparently consider personalized search not just to be bad but also an invasion of their privacy: Pew Report: 65% View Personalized Search As Bad; 73% See It As Privacy Invasion.

The problem is, no one is going to have a positive reaction if you ask if search engines should “track” what people search for to personalize results for them, in my opinion. But if you rephrase that question such as:

• If you’ve searched for “travel,” then immediately search for “spain,” do you think it makes sense for search engines to look at both and give you results about “spanish travel?”
• If you’re searching for football in the UK, do you think search engine should look at your location and provide information about UK football — soccer — rather than the NFL?

There are very good reasons that personalization can be helpful, as I wrote before. But personalization doesn’t sound good when it’s not presented along with real, helpful examples.

Page tries at this, but I didn’t think it was that successful. Google’s Singhal did a better take late last year. But make no mistake. Personalization is being mentioned by Page to help prop it up as an essential, helpful thing for Google to be doing.

Search Needs Social & If Other Social Networks Don’t Want To Share…

Page also argues that Google+ itself is an essential part of search and gets in a swipe at Facebook and Twitter:

Privacy considerations certainly limit the information that can be shared between platforms—even if the third parties hosting it were willing to work with Google, which hasn’t always been the case.

Google+ helps solve this problem for us because it enables Google to understand people and their connections….

This kind of next-generation search in which Google understands real-world entities—things, not strings—will help improve our results in exciting new ways. It’s about building genuine knowledge into our search engine.

As I said, Google’s come under fire that it’s favoring its own social network. Page effectively pushes back with a critical distinction. Google+ isn’t social; Google+ is part of search. Google needs to have it to run its search engine, and you can expect to hear that argument again and again, especially as the FTC explores Google+ as part of its on-going anti-trust investigation of Google.

You can also expect to hear Google continue to argue, as it has done already, that it is open to including social network’s data. Of course, there are very good reasons why Facebook and Twitter don’t want to share with Google. A Proposal For Social Network Détente, which I wrote earlier this year, explains more about this and some potential cooperation points all around.

Actions & Fair Search Results

Page moves on to a section called “Taking Actions” that especially seems designed to push back on accusations that Google is favoring its own services over those of competitors.

A good search engine should provide the best results possible, not just those that are in its own interests. Some have argued that Google, by showing results from its own shopping search engine or travel search engine, is favoring itself over that user interest as well as competitors. There’s even an argument that doing so violates anti-trust laws, given Google’s dominance in search.

To understand these arguments more, I highly recommend the stories below for more background:

• The Incredible Stupidity Of Investigating Google For Acting Like A Search Engine
• Bing’s Travel Search & Kayak Favoritism Angers No One, While Google’s Gets Headline Attention From WSJ
• Dear Congress: It’s Not OK Not To Know How Search Engines Work, Either
• Search Engines Should Be Like Santa From “Miracle On 34th Street”
• To Understand Google Favoritism, Think “If Google+ Were YouTube”

In most cases, I find the arguments against Google to be laughable, on the order of someone objecting that the New York Times doesn’t show the entertainment section from the Los Angeles Times, therefore government regulation is required.

It gets more complicated in some situations, especially where Google properties are destinations (such as YouTube or Google+) as opposed to be outbound-pointing search engines (such as Google Maps or Google Shopping).

Is Search Also Task Completion?

It gets even more complicated where Google is allowing for direct transactions to happen, such as booking flights or hotels. That’s one reason you saw companies like TripAdvisor and Expedia make formal anti-trust complaints to the European Union about Google last week.

Both companies, along with others including Microsoft, are part of the FairSearch group that singles out Google as being anti-competitive, even though many of the exact same complaints can be pointed at Microsoft-backed Bing. You can book hotels and flights directly at Bing, with Kayak getting preferred placement through a deal.

Page makes an important pivot to say that search isn’t just getting links to information but that it’s also about conducting actions right within the search results or getting direct answers within them:

In the early days of Google you would type in a query, we’d return ten blue links, and you would move on fairly happily. Today you want more. If you search for “weather san francisco”, chances are you want… the weather in San Francisco right there on the results page, not another click or two away. So that’s what we now provide

Truly great search is all about turning your needs into actions in the blink of an eye.

Page isn’t the first to say such things. Bing has been pushing on the idea that it’s a “decision engine” since Microsoft relaunched its search engine in 2009. It really hasn’t delivered on that promise of doing direct actions much more than Google, I’d say. Both have direct answers, which were commonly provided as far back as 2004 among the major search engines. As for task completion, both Google and Bing offer this in relatively limited ways.

Task completion — actions — are likely to grow, however. As they already have, it has been Google that’s come under pressure for potentially locking out competitors. Google Flight Search, made possible by the ITA acquisition that attracted so much scrutiny, as well as Google Hotel Finder, both especially stand out. Page pulls them into the protective umbrella of being part of core search, in his update:

Last year, for example, we welcomed ITA Software to the Google family. They have strong relationships with the airline industry, and using that data we can now provide more relevant results for travel queries. This means that if you search for “flights from chicago to los angeles”, you get a list of the most relevant flights with prices, and you can book directly with the airline—or click on an ad for an online travel agency.

We’re also experimenting with a feature called Hotel Finder, which enables you to compare prices and book a hotel room right from the results page. It’s all about speeding things up so users can get on with the things that matter in their lives.

See, there’s no anti-trust wrong-doing here, nothing to see. This is just all part of Google being a good search engine, Page seems to be saying. Whether regulators believe that remains to be see. But Google, which has already been arguing many of these points, seems to be refreshing its playbook with Page’s letter.

Related Articles

• Larry Page Gives An “Update” After His First Year As CEO
• Make Love, Not Evil — The New Google Motto?
• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy
• Pimping Google+ In Search Works: Lady Gaga Finally Joins Google+
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
• “Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+
• Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time
• When Everyone Gets The Vote: Social Shares As The New Link Building
• Google’s “Me On The Web” Pushes Google Profiles — Take That, Facebook?
• Report: FTC Expanding Anti-Trust Investigation Of Google To Include Google+
• A Proposal For Social Network Détente
• On Google & Being “Evil”
• Survey: Nearly 80% Trust Google As Much Or More Than A Year Ago

FairSearch.org has emerged as one of Google’s most vocal critics. Established in 2010, the entity is effectively an anti-Google lobbying group. It was formed by travel verticals and online travel agencies to oppose Google’s acquisition of software firm ITA.

The membership now includes several non-travel companies. Among them is now TheFind, a shopping search engine, which announced it was joining yesterday.

I reached out to TheFind in email when I saw the press release and asked CEO Siva Kumar for a sense of why the company was joining FairSearch. I also asked what specifically he felt Google was doing that was abusive and how it contrasted or compared with Bing’s behavior.

I received the following response in email:

As search enters a new phase, one defined by social, local and mobile, TheFind has been busy innovating on new products, with a focus specifically on social and social signals from sites like Facebook that have ubiquity.  Along with a lot of other innovative companies, we sense a significant opportunity in this next phase.  On the other hand, we share the concerns of our coalition partners that the inherent advantages of monopoly in legacy search, left unchecked could be leveraged to create unfair advantages in new fields.  We have chosen to join FairSearch now because we believe advocacy is required to ensure that the market conditions that allow for vigorous competition and innovation in this next phase.

Essentially Kumar is arguing that Google could (or will) utilize its dominance to prevent innovative smaller players like TheFind from gaining the kind of visibility and adoption that would otherwise be possible. He said that public advocacy is now required to maintain or “restore balance” to the search marketplace.

Google sees itself as a company in a competitive marketplace. Google’s critics see Google as a “public utility” that needs government regulation to prevent abuse.

One of the phrases in the above quote from TheFind that struck me was “coalition partners.” I can’t hear that phrase without thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Postscript: FairSearch.org spokesman Ben Hammer provided me with the following statement in email:

FairSearch does not take the position you ascribe to critics (which I realize may be a wider term than just the 17 members of our coalition): “Google’s critics see Google as a “public utility” that needs government regulation to prevent abuse.

Rather, our members believe Google is violating antitrust and consumer protection laws, and have laid out the specific practices in question. The coalition advocates for enforcing existing laws that Google is violating, not creating new regulations.

When I used the phrase “public utility” I meant that Google’s critics’ arguments (I’m not talking about FairSearch in particular) imply that the company is a kind of “utility” — a monopoly — that everyone uses and not simply one of several search engines competing with one another.

For its part, Google says the new policy will simplify privacy across Google’s many properties and make it possible for the company to build a range of new products and services for consumers, including on mobile. Arguably Google’s simplification of its many privacy policies was actually mandated by the FTC in the Buzz settlement.

Changes won’t affect users controls

Google also says that the new privacy policy won’t affect the controls that users can exercise over their browsing and search history:

The new policy doesn’t change any existing privacy settings or how any personal information is shared outside of Google. We aren’t collecting any new or additional information about users. We won’t be selling your personal data. And we will continue to employ industry-leading security to keep your information safe.

Nonetheless, there are a range of articles about how to “keep Google from watching you,” like one this morning in the Wall Street Journal.

Earlier this week the Obama Administration introduced a “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights” that will be voluntarily supported by Google, Yahoo, AOL and Microsoft. A parallel initiative involves implementation of a “do not track” button in browsers, which Google has said it will install in Chrome.

Google still under intense scrutiny, pressure over privacy

Despite these moves, Google still faces intense scrutiny and pressure from lawmakers, advocacy groups and states’ Attorneys General (see e.g., 36 State Attorneys General Call For Privacy Meeting With Google).

Yesterday during her SMX West keynote interview Google’s SVP of Advertising Susan Wojcicki spoke at some length about privacy and how that plays out in the context of Google’s ad and consumer products. She explained that Google is ultimately seeking to balance consumer and advertiser interests and is guided by several principles: control, notification and transparency.

She added that nothing changes today as a practical matter except the policy itself. However that sets the stage for potential later changes in consumer products and advertiser options.

Wojcicki tries to explain Google’s goals with new policy

Wojcicki also addressed the controversy over Google circumventing iPhone Safari privacy settings. She acknowledged “mistakes” and that there had been several privacy related missteps in the recent past. These communication and PR blunders have contributed to fear and suspicion that what Google says and what it intends are two different things.

Below are part of Wojcicki’s remarks from yesterday about Google and its new privacy policy and what the company is seeking to accomplish. You can see more clips, including additional privacy discussion, from her keynote interview here.

Related Entries

• Live Blogging the Google (Susan Wojcicki) SMX West Keynote
• White House Launches “Consumer Bill Of Rights” Effort, Companies Commit To “Do Not Track” Buttons
• 36 State Attorneys General Call For Privacy Meeting With Google
• Cookiegate Another Privacy Black Eye For Google
• Google Didn’t “Track” iPhones, But It Did Bypass Safari’s Privacy Settings
• Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
• Google Intros New Privacy Controls For Mobile Consumers
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”
• A Closer Look At The Google Buzz Privacy Settlement
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Europeans, EPIC Bring More Scrutiny To Google Privacy Changes
• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check

The owner, Daniel Brandt, said he took it down “forever.” He blames both Google and DDOS attack by someone or a group of people who had a personal vendetta with him. He said even if the DDOS attack did not happen, Scroogle would only have lasted an additional 6 months due to Google’s throttling and squeezing of the service.

Daniel told BetaBeat.com:

Scroogle.org is gone forever. Even if all my DDoS problems had never started in December, Scroogle was already getting squeezed from Google’s throttling, and was already dying. It might have lasted another six months if I hadn’t lost seven servers from DDoS, but that’s about all.

He explained:

I no longer have any domains online. I also took all my domains out of DNS because I want to signal to the criminal element that I have no more servers to trash. This hopefully will ward off further attacks on my previous providers.

I am a bit surprised the service is offline, it has been available since 2003 and has been through tough times with both Google and attacks.

Of course, Google could have shut it down at any moment, but has decided to simply throttle it instead of completely blocking it. Daniel Brandt is known to be an individual who is extremely anti Google’s practices. He blames Google for the site being offline but in reality, it seems he has other enemies.

Alternative Private Search Options:

• DuckDuckGo
• ixquick.com
• Ask Eraser
• Google Encrypted Search

Related Stories:

• Scroogle Says Google Is Blocking Their Privacy Search Engine
• Did Google Screw Scroogle?

To recap: Google and other ad networks (i.e., Gannett’s PointRoll) were discovered circumventing mobile Safari’s default “no third party cookies” settings. The WSJ characterized it as “tricking” Safari. As a practical matter Google was trying to make its +1 buttons work on iOS. The company was quoted in the WSJ article itself saying that nothing sinister was intended:

The Journal mischaracterizes what happened and why. We used known Safari functionality to provide features that signed-in Google users had enabled. It’s important to stress that these advertising cookies do not collect personal information.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation believes this controversy warrants a big “mea culpa” from Google and justifies “do not track” options for users. The UK’s Daily Mail describes Google’s activity as tantamount to “spying on iPhone owners.”

John Battelle defends Google (and decries Apple’s privacy “paternalism”), saying the company was merely restoring “normal web practice”:

In short, Apple’s mobile version of Safari broke with common web practice,  and as a result, it broke Google’s normal approach to engaging with consumers. Was Google’s “normal approach” wrong? Well, I suppose that’s a debate worth having – it’s currently standard practice and the backbone of the entire web advertising ecosystem –  but the Journal doesn’t bother to go into those details. One can debate whether setting cookies should happen by default – but the fact is, that’s how it’s done on the open web.

It’s fair to say the story is more complex than what was originally reported by the WSJ. The central problem is that most consumers have little understanding of the intricacies of online advertising, cookie tracking and how to manage the process. And it’s very challenging to educate them on these topics. Indeed, most people never change default settings on their computers or their phones, which is why these “default search” deals are so valuable and coveted in part.

There are numerous surveys, however, that argue consumers are concerned about privacy and mobile privacy in particular. The degree of concern varies by age, situation and how the question is framed. But the concern is there. For example, a February 2011 survey from TRUSTe and Harris showed that the majority were concerned about mobile “tracking” by third parties:

The vast majority of survey respondents (98%) believe that privacy is an important issue when using a mobile device and they want more transparency and choice over the personal information mobile apps and websites collect and share, especially as it relates to targeted advertising and geo-location data. Additionally, more than 1 in 3 of consumers (38%) identified privacy as their number one concern when using mobile applications, followed by security (26%) and identity tracking (19%).

Source: Harris-TRUSTe (2/11, n=1,000 US adults)

Apple’s mobile Safari default is to block cookies from other than the site being visited. This was a decision Apple made on behalf of its users without “consulting” with them. EFF believes it’s the right choice. Battelle says it breaks with “web practice.” My guess based on the various survey data I’ve seen is that most users would side with Apple on this one.

Whether or not Cookiegate “has legs” (and members of Congress start calling for more investigations), it’s yet another PR misstep and black eye for Google around privacy. It looks especially bad or “hypocritical” in light of a high-profile campaign Google was recently running on websites like the NY Times about privacy and user data. The campaign tries to educate and reassure users that their data are safe with Google.

Google has sought to position itself as a guardian of user privacy. Indeed, last year Google specifically said it was going the extra mile to respect and give users control over mobile privacy. But a growing string of controversies, including Google’s recent announcement about the consolidation of its privacy policies into one, has rendered that claim hollow for many people.

Rather than scheming or conscious, unethical behavior on Google’s part, I tend to see this misstep as a function of arrogance or insensitivity. But the growing number of privacy controversies is becoming problem and contributing to a perception that Google needs to be reined in.

During the nearly simultaneous Kenya and Search Plus Your World uproars I wrote that people are increasingly inclined to leap to conclusions about Google based on their fundamental beliefs about whether the company is good or “evil.” More and more they project on to the Google ink blot whatever they want to see.

It’s not clear that any of the privacy issues described above have impacted “ordinary users” or their perceptions of Google. So far there isn’t really any evidence. But if these missteps keep happening Google’s reputation will certainly suffer with the public.

Postscript: See our follow-up, No Surprise: Congress, Consumer & Privacy Groups Want Google To Explain Safari Privacy Snafu

Related Entries

• Google Didn’t “Track” iPhones, But It Did Bypass Safari’s Privacy Settings
• Google’s SPYW, Kenya Imbroglios An “Ink Blot” Test For Google As Good Or Evil
• Apple Takes Google’s Spot As “Most Reputable Company” In US
• Google #2, Facebook #38 In Global “Brand Desire” Study
• Google Intros New Privacy Controls For Mobile Consumers
• Meet +1: Google’s Answer To The Facebook Like Button
• Google Now Forcing All New Users To Create Google+ Enabled Accounts
• Two Weeks In, Google Says “Search Plus Your World” Going Well, Critics Should Give It Time
• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”
• A Closer Look At The Google Buzz Privacy Settlement
• Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?
• Europeans, EPIC Bring More Scrutiny To Google Privacy Changes
• No, You Don’t Need To Fear The Google Privacy Changes: A Reality Check

I just tested it and Scroogle returns an error message that reads, “so sorry… Google is temporarily blocking this Scroogle server.”

This happened back in May 2010 as well, and probably happens fairly often.

Google told BetaBeat that they are not manually blocking Scroogle but they do have automated systems in place that “deter scraping or excessive queries to Google, and spikes in query traffic can cause issues for some sites.” So this is probably a case of a spike in traffic from Scroogle and those automated tools preventing the spike from hurting’s Google’s servers.

Google’s terms of service do give them the right to turn off services like Scroogle from working but Google has yet to block Scroogle forever. I’d be surprised if this service is off for more than a day.

Daniel Brandt is known to be an individual who is extremely anti Google’s practices.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Cutts is in South Korea this week and, in a presentation Monday night for about 80 government officials, webmasters, lawyers and journalists, managed to singlehandedly convince some government reps to let Googlebot crawl and index their websites.

One of those in the audience was Kang Min-koo, a senior judge in the Seoul High Court. When he saw the court’s Web site was on Mr. Cutts’ list of government sites that couldn’t be indexed by Google – and thus couldn’t be found on a Google search – he sent a text message by phone to the court’s webmaster ordering it to be changed.

Since the change can be made by altering just a few lines of software code, the webmaster had it done in no time. When it came time for questions, Mr. Kang asked Mr. Cutts to check if the High Court’s site showed up on Google – and it did.

Cutts’ visit to South Korea comes on the heels of tension between the government and Google. Earlier this month, the Korean Fair Trade Commission accused Google of interfering with its Android antitrust investigation. The commission alleges that Google deleted documents pertinent to its investigation into whether Google is limiting access to local search engines on Android smartphones.

There’s also the matter that South Korea is one of only a handful of countries where Google isn’t the dominant search engine. And, as the WSJ points out, Google isn’t likely to gain market share in Korea if prominent websites aren’t in its index.

While Cutts may have the title of being Google’s chief spam cop, he’s long been one of the companies go-to public faces. A little more than a year ago, Google sent him to Washington, DC on an “educational tour” aimed at telling government officials that Google’s search results don’t need to be regulated.

Most Google users are happy, Singhal said. Of course, Search Plus Your World isn’t perfect, he admits, but it’ll improve. As for including content from social networks like Twitter and Facebook, Google’s open to that, as long as long-term deals can be reached that give Google faith it can build new features that will last.

I talked today with Singhal — the “Google Fellow” who oversees all of Google’s search algorithms — about the reaction to Search Plus Your World. Here’s the Q&A, questions in bold, answers from Singhal indented below them.

What’s been your overall reaction or thoughts as you’ve seen all the debate about Search Plus Your World?

The overall takeaway that I have in my mind is that people are judging a product and an overall direction that we have in the first two weeks of a launch, where we are producing a product for the long term.

We’re clearly not done. The product is not complete. It will improve, and we are going to add more things to it. We — Google — always launch products and learn from our launches.

Let me also add one thing. Here is something that I’ve been noticing. The user feedback we have been getting has been almost the other side of the reaction we’ve seen in the blogosphere. The users who have seen this in the wild are liking it, and our initial data analysis is showing the same.

With Universal Search or Google Instant, there were more initial complaints, then even later, people were delighted with it.

NOTE: Earlier this week, I was reviewing Google’s web search support forums myself. There really isn’t any massive outcry as we’ve seen with other launches, such as when Google Reader integrated Google+ sharing last year.

There are two main changes that Search Plus Your World introduced. One was the ability to search through privately-shared content along with public content. Some have written they dislike this. Your reaction?

Every time a real user is getting those results, they really are delighted. Given how personal this product is, you can only judge it based on personal experiences or by aggregate numbers you can observe through click-through.

Like everything else, we will improve the rankings and so on. But out of the gate, whereas we had limited users to train this system with, I’m actually very happy with the outcome of the personal results.

How about the concerns that Google+ is being favored too much?

Once again, the blogosphere, they’re just judging the book by the cover.

NOTE: I then mentioned there have been some examples of these blogged, such as by John Battelle, Mat Honan and just today, Tom Blue wrote about how personalized results made searches for things like “television” or “knives” seem to have irrelevant listings. Singhal then said….

I wouldn’t disagree that there may be a few examples out there where our system could be better, but there are millions of queries where our system could be better.

But specifically, there are concerns Google+ is being favored too much not in the privately-shared results but rather as suggestions in the search box or in the new People & Pages results.

This goes back to the point we have been making, that we only have access to personal content and personally shared content from Google Plus. We don’t have that access from other companies.

But what about the Don’t Be Evil tool launched this week, showing that you can create People & Pages results that do go beyond Google+ content.

This is where I’m saying most people are jumping to a conclusion based on the first two weeks of the product. We’re designing a product which it will work for all individuals. It will have identities as a fundamental ingredient of search and relationships as another fundamental ingredient of search.

All this debate is centered around these very popular people out there, and what you could have done for them, and what makes the most sense. But when you’re developing a product, you don’t want to develop it for one segment of the population.

I’ve not seen the debate that I have a [personal] friend named Ben Smith, and when I try to search for him, I get bad results. If you actually build a product only for popular people, then it undermines what we are trying to do. You can’t build a product that behaves differently for one class of people then differently for the real relationships that matter for you.

I feel like this point has not been emphasized enough. People have gotten stuck on these very popular names, and no one has been focused on the cool part of the product where you can find people you care about.

But the People & Pages section does seem focused on famous people or big companies right now.

This is the first two weeks of the product. We have designed for the future of the product. We have designed a product not just for how it works for today, and what we really want is for it to work for tomorrow. Going forward, we’d be interested in doing things like if you’re looking for a destination, we’d like to present to you people that you know who may have something to say about that destination.

People are coming to a conclusion about the product today, within the first two weeks, and they’re not fully seeing the potential where we can build this product around real identities and real relationships.

Is what we have now in People & Pages a promotion for Google+ or search results meant to be more than pushing Google+?

What we are thinking about that product is that if you’re interested in something, who are the people you are potentially related to that you should know about? If they have shared things with you, that’s the obvious thing. It’s easier to build the early system with popular people, but that’s just the beginning of the product.

But how about now? Is this more a Google+ promotional unit?

We don’t think of this as a promotional unit now. This is a place that you would find people with real identities who would be interesting for your queries.

Currently, that place I would admit is occupied by really popular people. So what we are trying to do with this product is indeed bring that aspect that there’s this real society out there that you should know about.

Why not show the additional social links there? For example, you show Britney Spears with her Google+ page in a search for “music.” She links to her Twitter and Facebook accounts from her Google+ page. Couldn’t those be listed as alternative links within People & Pages?

If people click on her Google+ page, those links are available on her About page. Once again, this is possible for us [to maybe show alternative links] because we know much more about the real identities on Google Plus. We can’t provide that for other [lesser known] people.

But what if the people I really want to know about are on those other social networks?

Now I go back to watching how people are acting [with Search Plus Your World]. For example, if someone is not active on Google+, indeed, we shouldn’t be showing their very old posts. That’s one big lesson I’ve learned from watching this in the wild. We’re learning how we can improve the product. We’re already starting to launch some of these improvements as we speak.

What do you need from companies like Twitter and Facebook to integrate them into Search Plus Your World?

Fundamentally, what we learned with our great Realtime Search product is that once you build a great product that users love, then someone else can decide the fate of that product [because when the Twitter deal wasn't renewed, the Google's Realtime Search service depended so much on Twitter that it had to be closed].

That was a very bad experience for Google’s users, and it was a bad experience for our teams. They put their heart and souls into building a great product, just to see that go to waste.

We’re very open to incorporating information from other services, but that needs to be done on terms that wouldn’t change in a short period of time and make our products vanish.

What if you got the Twitter firehose of data without needing a deal. Would that work?

The question that comes down to is under what terms all that’s under. I’m just very wary of building a product where the terms can be changed.

But what if you were given all the posts that people make, no deal needed, just full access to the firehose. Would that be enough?

There’s more to it. A good product can only be built where we understand who’s who and who is related to whom. Relationships are also important alongside content. To build a good product, we have to do all types of processing. But fundamentally, it’s not just about content. It’s about identity, relationships and content. Anything else trivializes a very hard product.

What about if you were also given a feed about identities and relationships. Who someone is, all their social connections that are made public?

We’re very open to talking to all the parties on what does it take to build a proper identity product for users, with proper relationships managed.

Wasn’t something like the Open Social Graph API supposed to provide this? Or aren’t there these type of standards already?

I wish there were such standards that were widely adopted out there. One problem we already have observed is there are all types of link spam connections on Google Plus. We have to develop sophisticated analysis, say if someone posts with a particular pattern, we can tell they aren’t a real person.

There’s a lot more. It’s not just about content. It’s about identity, and when you start talking about these things and what it takes to build this, the data needed is much more than we can publicly crawl.

Moving Forward

That’s the interview. On a personal note, I’ve viewed the debate around Search Plus Your World as perhaps an opportunity to break the stalemate that’s existed between Facebook and Google for years over sharing data, as well as resolve the loss of Twitter data that happened last year.

Both Facebook and Twitter have real reasons to fear that Google — with its own Google+ social network — might use their data in a way that would threaten their own businesses.

However, both Facebook and Twitter also have good reasons for wanting to be better included in Google’s search engine. Similarly, Google’s search engine would benefit by having more social content within it, as well as a better understanding of social relationships.

That also means I think Google’s search engine would benefit if it could socially connect with any social network, not just Google Plus. I especially want to see the Google search engine continuing to do what I’ve depended on it to do, list the best content from across the entire web, regardless of where it is located.

I covered the strange balancing act Google has to walk between its social network and its search engine at the end of my article about the Don’t Be Evil tool from Facebook and Twitter that launched this week.

As for the balancing act Facebook and Twitter face with Google, I covered more about that — and some potential solutions — in my other post from earlier this this week: A Proposal For Social Network Détente.

Please consider reading both of those articles to understand more about these issues. There’s also related background reading below.

Related: Twitter-Google Deal

• Google Launches Real Time Search Results
• As Deal With Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline
• Google Realtime Search & The Aftermath Of The Google-Twitter Split
• Twitter Renews Deal With Bing; Google Deal Remains MIA

Related: Facebook-Google Data Dispute

• Facebook On Social Search: ‘We Want To Work With Everybody’
• Facebook: You’ve No Right To Export Email Addresses (Unless It’s To Yahoo & Microsoft)
• Google & Facebook: If You’re So Smart, Work It Out!
• How Facebook Enables The Google Social “Scraping” It’s Upset About
• Google To Close Social Graph API, Not OpenSocial

Related: Google’s Search Plus Your World

• Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World”
• Schmidt: Google+ Not Favored, Happy To Talk Twitter & Facebook Integration
• Twitter Cries Foul Over Google “@WWE” Search, But Google Still Beats Bing
• “Don’t Be Evil” Tool — Backed By Facebook & Twitter — Shows Google’s “Search Plus Your World” Can Go Beyond Google+
• FAQ: What’s The Debate About Google’s Search Plus Your World?
• A Proposal For Social Network Détente