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 […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: On Average, 171 Health Insurance Advertisers Bid On Same Top Keywords In Google Health insurance advertisers spent more than $103 million on Google AdWords in the U.S. in the first half […]
As we discussed last week, the current Europe-Google antitrust settlement is dead. This is a surprising turn of events considering that it was once described by European regulators as essentially a done deal. Outgoing European Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia confirmed last week in a talk at Georgetown University that a deal could not be finalized before he leaves office in a […]
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt took to the Google Europe Blog this weekend to defend his company against a Europe-wide ad campaign that asserts Google has abused its dominant market position in search. It’s essentially a public appeal on the same terms being argued to the European Commission for why Google needs to be restrained. […]
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 Launches Ability To Track “Website Call Conversions” In AdWords Today, Google launched a what’s likely to become a popular new feature for many AdWords advertisers. Website call conversions allow advertisers […]
Over the weekend, Google has sent out mass link penalty notifications throughout Europe for those sites partaking in specific link networks with the goal of manipulating their rankings in Google. Google’s Johannes Mehlem posted on Twitter that Google has “taken action on one European and one German linking network.” We have taken action on 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: UK House Of Lords Condemns Right To Be Forgotten The House of Lords in the UK has little power in government or policy making except at the margins. Similarly, the British […]
The House of Lords in the UK has little power in government or policy making except at the margins. Similarly, the British upper house’s recent condemnation of the European Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) will have little practical impact in the UK or across Europe. Still it’s a dissenting voice from within a European government. […]
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 Ads Is Getting A Slick New Look That Will Feel Familiar Bing is unveiling a new look that will start showing up in the web interface next week. The new […]
There’s a basic feeling among traditional news publishers throughout Europe, and among some in the U.S., that Google has benefited enormously from their content but failed to offer anything in return. Furthermore, many publishers see Google as directly responsible for the decline of their traditional advertising and circulation revenues. The counter-argument that Google sends traffic […]
Russia’s deteriorating relations with Europe and the U.S. don’t appear (so far) to have impacted its leading search engine Yandex, which announced second quarter results this morning. Yandex reported revenues of RUR 12.2 billion ($361.5 million), up 32 percent over last year. Income was RUR 3.6 billion ($1.08 billion), representing a 13 percent increase over […]
The Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) content removal requests in Europe keep coming in. It’s difficult right now to know whether they’re leveling off or continuing to increase. On the first day of availability Google’s RTBF online form, it received 12,000 submissions. Sources familiar with the status of Google’s program told us that there had […]
According to a story appearing in The Verge yesterday, Microsoft is not allowing users to set Google as the default search engine for mobile web browsing on new Lumia 8.1 devices (630 and 930). As the article points out, the search button on the handset uses Bing and cannot be switched. I reached out to […]
Yelp has been an increasingly vocal critic of Google for several years. Now it has joined a group of companies opposing the European Commission’s current antitrust settlement proposal with Google. Originally Google and Yelp were partners. Google unsuccessfully tried to buy Yelp for a rumored $500 million a year or so before the company went […]
Lots of people are afraid unnecessarily of behavioural advertising. All it means is that if you have been to a site or bought something, a cookie is dropped on your computer and ad servers read those cookies and try to serve you an ad that is most appropriate to you. The data is anonymised and […]
“The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” the saying goes. There are plenty of good intentions with the EU’s Right To Be Forgotten mandate, as well as Google’s attempt to meet new obligations under it. Things are still going to hell regardless. Thanks to the new right, the EU has helped enable convicted […]
Google began removing listings in response to the EU’s new Right To Be Forgotten mandate last week. As promised, Google is also disclosing to searchers when such removals have happened. However, it is also confusingly reporting that removals may have happened even when they have not. Welcome to Google’s new blanket notice that all name-based […]
Google has begun processing and removing the approved submissions done through the right to the Right To Be Forgotten Form. The Right To Be Forgotten is a European Court Of Justice ruling from May 2014 that EU citizens could request that search engines remove links to pages deemed private, even if the pages themselves remain […]
On the heels of Europe’s “Right to Be Forgotten” ruling, a British Columbia court in Canada has ruled Google must block a group of websites worldwide. The case was opened by industrial networking devices manufacturer Equustek Solutions, Inc. to block a network of websites it claims are owned by former associates who stole trade secrets […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Is The Mobile Migration Of Graph Search Upon Us? New Facebook Test Uncovers Mobile Web Integration We’ve been saying that it is just a matter of time for Facebook’s Graph Search […]
European Commissioner for Justice Viviane Reding was quoted in a BBC interview saying that the Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) will be relatively easy for Google to administer. She asserted that, compared to the millions of copyright removal requests Google deals with, the thousands of RTBF requests are a “small thing.” Google also manages government removal requests on a […]
The caution “be careful what you wish for” might be appropriate going into a meeting of 28 European privacy regulators in Brussels this week. Following the European Court of Justice’s creation of the Right to Be Forgotten (RTBF) and Google’s launch of a web form to field requests (now over 41,000), privacy officers must come […]
As of the end of last week there were roughly 12,000 requests that had been officially submitted to Google under Europe’s judicially created “right to be forgotten” (RTBF) rule. Google launched an online form last week to field the requests. According to the Wall Street Journal the 12,000 have now turned into 41,000. That’s roughly […]
The UK financial services industry regulator Financial Conduct Authority is taking a closer look at Google Comparison Ads. UK price comparison sites have complained that Google is unfairly competing with them by placing its own “product” at the top of search results. Comparison Ads, which operate on a CPA basis, are one form of AdWords. Below […]
Google has taken a big step forward in complying with the European Union’s new “Right To Be Forgotten” that was established after a court ruling earlier this month. The company has created a new form allowing those in the EU to request takedown of URLs they dislike. Removals will only happen for EU-versions of Google, […]
Tonight at the Re/Code conference in Southern California, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was interviewed on stage. He discussed many things, including the diverse range of “Google X” projects: indoor mapping (Tango), WiFi balloons (Project Loon), new prototype self-driving cars and more. Curiously the main interview, though wide ranging, didn’t get into the recent European Court […]
Travel advertisers spent three quarters of a billion dollars on Google AdWords in the U.S. last year, according to AdGooroo’s annual review of AdWords activity in the U.S. travel sector. Nearly 12,700 travel advertisers competed for visibility on more than 50,000 keywords. Booking.com captured more impressions on Google AdWords desktop/tablet in the U.S. than any […]
Steve Coast founded OpenStreetMap (OSM) in the UK in 2004. It’s 10 years old this year. He was inspired by the Wikipedia model and compelled by a lack of available map and location data in the UK at that time. Coast now works for GPS navigation company Telenav, which owns location-based mobile ad network Thinknear. Not long ago […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: DuckDuckGo Relaunches & Starts To Look Like A Real Search Engine DuckDuckGo, the spunky little search engine that hangs its hat on user privacy, has relaunched today with a new look […]
Frustrated by what it sees as the European Commission’s capitulation to Google, a new group called the “Open Internet Project” (OIP) seeks to derail the current Google antitrust settlement or create a new investigation. A mixture of French and German publishers and companies are behind the initiative. The OIP claims to represent hundreds more European […]
Depending on what you read, a “Right To Be Forgotten” court ruling in the European Union this week means that now anyone can ask for anything to be removed from Google, which will soon collapse under an overwhelming number of requests. In reality, it’s far more limited than it sounds, though the ruling does raise […]
Earlier today, Google published its annual Founders’ Letter. This is a kind of “Google State of the Union” missive that Google has published annually since it went public. Many bloggers picked up on the following remark in the document penned by Google CEO Larry Page: “[I]n many ways, we’re a million miles away from creating […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: With New GDN Ad Format, Text Ads Will Compete In Display Auctions Today, Google unveiled a new ad format on the Google Display Network (GDN) called magazine ads in which text […]
The floodgates have opened. According to a Reuters story, following Tuesday’s European Court ruling establishing a Europe-wide “right to be forgotten” (RTF), Google is preparing for an anticipated “flood” of removal requests across the 28 country jurisdiction. The ruling provided a right to individuals to request (and ultimately compel) removal of unflattering or undesired information about […]
The “right to be forgotten”: a triumph of individual privacy rights or censorship? It’s going to depend on how it plays out in specific circumstances. The Luxembourg-based European Union Court of Justice, Europe’s “top court,” ruled earlier today that Google can be compelled to remove information about individuals from search results as part of a […]
Incisive Media, which purchased the Search Engine Strategies conference when it was near the height of attendance, killed the brand entirely last year in place of a new ClickZ Live event. But now, after what seems to have been a disaster of the first ClickZ Live show, the company is scrambling back to revive SES. […]
The president of French video platform DailyMotion Giuseppe de Martino told UK newspaper The Independent he believes Google is leveraging unfair search practices, serving up YouTube videos in place of DailyMotion content. Independent reporter Ian Burrell writes: [De Martino] claims that sometimes when internet users search Google for DailyMotion videos they mysteriously don’t appear – […]
Today’s Google logo honors renown chemist Percy Lavon Julian, the first African American scientist to be inducted into the National Academy of Sciences. During his career, Julian made a number of significant chemical advancements, including the creation of Aero-Foam, a soy-based product widely used to extinguish fires during World War II. Julian discovered how to […]
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 Testing New Search Results Design Bing is testing a new search results layout that changes the color of the logo from gray to the yellow/orange, changes the color of the […]
It seems like each European country is taking its turn fining Google for some privacy infraction. This time, it’s Italy and involves Street View. Google has reportedly paid a roughly $1.4 million (1 million EUR) fine. According a story in Reuters, the issue this time was the failure to clearly mark Street View cars during […]