An “inadvertently disclosed” report from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) labels Google a monopoly and appears to directly contradict the decision not to pursue legal action against the company. In early 2013 the FTC formally decided to close its antitrust investigation against Google demanding only modest changes in the company’s business practices. It turns out […]
Both Google and the EU have credible positions on whether RTBF should be applied globally.
European privacy regulators continue to push for an extension of The Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) to the entire Google index, globally. However Google for the time being has taken the position that it will not remove RTBF results from Google.com. That was reiterated this week by David Drummond, the company’s Chief Legal Officer. He’s […]
International restaurant search provider Zomato has acquired Urbanspoon from IAC for between $50 and $60 million in cash. Zomato was founded in India in 2008 but now operates in more than 20 countries and 130 cities globally. Urbanspoon content will be incorporated into Zomato and the Urbanspoon brand will go away after a short transition period. […]
Bing uses its predictions technology to forecast what's going to be big next year, covering everything from fashion to food and football.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: New Widget In AdWords Makes Countdown Copy Easy Quickly set up dynamic countdowns in ads without having to type variable strings. Quickly set up dynamic countdowns in ads without having to […]
Google continues to face potential fines for failing to change its privacy policy in Europe. Since the company introduced its “simplified privacy policy” in 2012 it has faced Europe-wide criticism and the threat of fines for violating local data protection laws. Multiple government data protection authorities across Europe are cooperating in an effort to compel Google to make changes in […]
A new effort by the Spanish Newspaper Publishers Association (AEDE) to prevent Google from shutting down its News site in Spain is an amazing example of industry chutzpah or hubris. The action shows so much chutzpah in fact that it enters the realm of unintentional political satire. First the background if you don’t already know […]
Google has decided to shut down Google News in Spain. This drastic step will occur next week (December 16) and is the result of a recently passed Spanish law that would have compelled Google to pay licensing revenues to Spanish publishers if their content appeared in Google News — even headlines. Some Spanish publishers, including newspaper group AEDE, […]
Until Android came along Google’s most important product after search undoubtedly was Google Maps. I know it sounds heretical to say this but in some ways Maps is more strategic to Google than search today. That’s because Google Maps bridge the physical and digital worlds and because Maps are more “useful” to mobile users than […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Rolls Out New “Fact Answers” Search Feature With Information On Local Addresses & Reviews Bing has updated its search results to deliver what it calls “Fact Answers” for local reviews […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google: Penguin 3.0 Rollout Still Ongoing Google has confirmed with us that the shifts and changes reported throughout the industry on Thanksgiving day were a result of the Penguin 3.0 refresh […]
Reputation VIP, which operates the Forget.me website in Europe, has said that Microsoft/Bing is starting to implement “Right to Be Forgotten” (RTBF) requests. The company released a study of RTBF requests and Google in October, which was generally consistent with Google’s own subsequently released data. Forget.me said initially that 60 percent of RTBF requests to Google were being denied. Google itself reported 58 percent. […]
Today, many Americans were busy preparing Thanksgiving meals or getting ready to travel to the homes of friends and family to celebrate the holiday. But Google certainly won’t be giving thanks for the European Parliament’s vote in favor of a resolution to “unbundle” Google’s search engine from the rest of its business. The widely anticipated, non-binding vote calls upon […]
The German member of the European Parliament behind the call to break up Google, Andreas Schwab, has a conflict of interest. According to the NY Times, he has ties to and earns money from a German law firm that represents anti-Google publishing interests in Germany. German publishers lobbied for the passage of the “ancillary copyright” law […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: 3 Proven Ways To Write Ads That Deliver More Conversions Now you know you need to change your paid search creative to keep it fresh. Contributor Frederick Vallaeys shares tips from […]
Break Google up. That’s the thrust of a “non-binding” resolution the European Parliament is expected to adopt at some point in the near future, according to a report on Friday from Reuters. The recommendation is likely to be to separate Google’s search engine from the rest of the business. Needless to say, if this were to come to pass it […]
How much does it cost to be Mozilla’s Firefox search provider in Europe? Perhaps nothing — because Google will continue to be the provider there despite not having any formal deal with Mozilla, come this December. Yesterday, it was big news that Mozilla announced new deals making Yahoo the default search provider for Firefox in the US, Yandex […]
Yahoo and Mozilla just announced a “strategic five-year partnership that makes Yahoo the default search experience for Firefox in the United States on mobile and desktop.” The companies said they will explore other potential “future product integrations and distribution opportunities to other markets.” Yahoo is thus going to displace Google the current Firefox search provider. […]
Google is facing daily fines of €1,000 in France, under a punitive ruling tied to the Right-to-Be-Forgotten (RTBF), unless it removes links to an article from its index globally, according to The Guardian. Several politicians in Europe have recently suggested that the RTBF should extend to all Google results worldwide, not just country level indexes. […]
A member of the Swedish parliament, Niclas Malmberg, wants Google to help fund Swedish news publications along the lines of the French model established last year. Threatened with a “link tax,” Google agreed “to create a €60 million Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to help support transformative digital publishing initiatives for French readers.” Google also agreed […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing: It’s Unlikely That We’ll Take Search Share Away From Google Microsoft’s Director of Search admitted this week that Bing isn’t likely to put a significant dent in Google’s search market […]
Axel Springer, Germany’s largest publisher and the owner of Europe’s largest newspaper, has said it wants back in to snippets. According to Reuters, the German publishing giant revealed that traffic to its four largest online properties from Google search results “had fallen by 40 percent” and referrals from Google News had dropped “by 80 percent in the past […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Redesigns Maps, Adds OpenTable Reservations, Uber Estimates Google continues to evolve its Maps for mobile. It has gone well beyond the rudimentary local search and navigation product it once was […]
Although there was little guidance on how to handle “Right To Be Forgotten” (RTBF) requests, Google’s PR Chief in Europe says the company acted quickly to process those requests and remove some URLs out of a fear of being sued. Peter Barron, the head of Google’s European communications, told a packed session today at the […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Following Germany’s Lead Spain Passes Misguided “Google Tax” Anti-Piracy Law Given the saga of Germany’s ill-conceived and poorly implemented “ancillary copyright law” one would have thought that another European government wouldn’t […]
Given the saga of Germany’s ill-conceived and poorly implemented “ancillary copyright law” one would have thought that another European government wouldn’t immediately duplicate the mistake. But that’s exactly what’s happened in Spain. Spanish newspaper publishers, hoping to turn Google into a source of compulsory licensing revenue, worked to pass a new law that imposes strict fines for the […]
Gary Illyes from Google announced on Google+ that the Google Webmaster Trends Analyst team is looking to observe you and your company, while you work. Gary said Google is looking to sit with companies, agencies, and website owners at their office and watch them as they work on “managing their sites’ content and infrastructure.” This […]
According to a voice search study commissioned by Google, the most smartphone-obsessed teens are using voice search every day. However many adults feel self-conscious or embarrassed when they talk to their smartphones. The study found that 45 percent of US adults said they felt “like a geek” talking to their phones. (Yet this is what […]
The attitudes of European policy makers toward Google seem to have hardened of late. On various regulatory fronts, Google faces vocal critics and well-organized opposition. Google’s Eric Schmidt gave a speech earlier today in Berlin seeking to change some of those hardened hearts and minds. Schmidt argued that Google is not only not a monopoly […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Nixed 4,143 Links To YouTube, Groups Under “RTBF” On the heels of our earlier discussion of search-index removal requests under the “Right to Be Forgotten” (RTBF) in Europe, stories came […]
Reputation VIP operates the Forget.me website intended to handle Google and Bing “Right to Be Forgotten” (RTBF) requests. Using three months of data, the company has released a study on RTBF’s impact in France, the UK and Germany. There was a smaller, separate study on Spain. It found that overall 60 percent of requests are […]
Nokia’s Here Maps, which power maps on Windows Phones, has released a beta version for Samsung Galaxy Android phones. It’s not available through Google Play, though presumably it will be in time. Nokia’s hardware/handset division was sold to Microsoft but Nokia retained the Here mapping service. Now Microsoft is going to phase out the Nokia brand […]
Yesterday a new anti-Google consortium called “Focus on the User” launched a website that cleverly uses Google’s own words and algorithm to make an argument against Google+ Local (map pack) search results. It also operates as a concrete proposal that might substitute for the now defunct “rival links” compromise in the Google-EU antitrust matter. One […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: An AdWords Script To Make Exact Match, Well…Exact Many of you will have heard about Google’s decision to terminate exact match (at the same time as telling us that it’s for […]
From an American legal perspective, the recently established European Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) is a disaster. It’s a confusing, vague, impractical and possibly even dangerous decision. But from a European historical perspective, it makes considerable sense. The different histories of the U.S. and Europe in the 20th Century have shaped different attitudes and rules […]
The Wall Street Journal added more color to the unfolding story of the collapse of the Google-European Commission antitrust settlement. Notwithstanding denials by outgoing competition czar Joaquín Almunia, it’s clear that pressure from major European publishers, rivals and politicians undermined the deal. We’re in something of a “now what?” moment. If a settlement cannot be […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing Rolls Out New Updates For Its iPhone App Bing has released new updates for its iPhone app, adding a Bing Translator button, as well as including Bing’s image of the […]
Last week, comScore released its August U.S. search market share rankings report. It appears Google has permanently plateaued at 67 percent (or so). In Europe, Google’s share is above 90 percent, which is why all the antitrust activity. Back in the U.S., Microsoft and Yahoo combined for 29 percent, which is where the Search Alliance […]
One of the unanswered questions in the ongoing European-Google antitrust saga is what concrete changes or concessions critics want (or will accept) from Google. One of those things may have just come to light in a Financial Times interview with German justice minister Heiko Maas. Maas asserts in the interview that Google needs to become more “transparent” about its algorithm and […]