Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: June 29, 2009
Tags : Department of Justice, DoJ, google, investigation, public relations, spin
If there is one powerhouse on the web today it has to be Google. Sure the little upstarts like Facebook and Twitter might be grabbing all the headlines but unfortunately Google is getting a different kind of attention, that it really doesn’t want. Mr. Dana Wagner, Google’s “senior competition counsel”, would like to have everyone believe that the company is part of an industry where disruption is only a mouse click away but not everyone is falling for that line.
Over the past little while Google has found itself under the ever increasing watchful eye of the Department of Justice. Following up on the derailment of a Google – Yahoo deal the company is facing three new antitrust investigations by the government. In an effort to soft-pedal Google’s influence Wagner has been making the rounds to talk with reporters in Silicon Valley, Washington and New York, as well as any Congressional staff members who let him in the door, and industry groups. In general anyone who can influence public perception about Google is getting a visit.
However not everyone is falling for the Google-spin about how it really is just a small company in the larger scheme of things and isn’t any danger to anyone because the market they operate in can change in the blink of an eye
Eyes are rolling, especially in reaction to the idea that Google is a relatively small player in a giant market. “They describe where they are in a market under a kind of a fairy-tale spun gloss that doesn’t reflect their dominance of key sectors,” said Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. “Google search is an absolute must-have for every marketer in the world.”
[….]
Hand-wringing over Google’s power is not new. But some experts say that the steady stream of headlines about antitrust investigations could tarnish Google’s image with consumers, who by and large still view the company, and its growing list of free and innovative online services, positively.
“No company, whether it is Google, Microsoft or anyone else, wants to be portrayed in a negative way,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School. “It is absolutely right for Google to be worried, to be prepared, to be paranoid and to respond accordingly.”
Source: New York Times :: Google Makes a Case That It Isn’t So Big
While little press junkets like this might have worked in the past when Google was actually a small company the fact is they aren’t a small company anymore, and they do wield a lot of power on the Web. suggesting otherwise is just plain facetious.
image courtesy of InformationWeek
Jun 29, 2009
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Jun 30, 2009
Keep in mind that anybody COULD do exactly what Google did. The WAIS server is open source, there are other text search engines that are also open source. The big “secret” of Google's success is that they ONLY put ads that are relevant to the CURRENT SEARCH on the screen, and they put them in the sponsored area, which means that a Google user can search for both general information, including blogs, about a particular topic, but they can also see suppliers tied to that product.
Other search engines, such as Yahoo, or Microsoft's Bing seem to censor content, give higher priority to articles with a particular bias, and put lots of ads that have nothing to do with the search topic. If I look up Linux on Bing, I'll get the first page full of Microsoft's “Fast Facts” telling the reader how much better Windows is than Linux, and and ad for a weight loss program, and an ad for a dating service.
If I look up Linux on Google, I get lots of articles describing what Linux is, where to get it, places I can download free versions. But I also get sponsored links for where I can get commercially supported versions of Linux, as well as a sponsored link from Microsoft inviting the reader to visit the “fast facts” page that was posted as “free” on the Microsoft site.
Microsoft's objection to Google is that Google doesn't censor it's content, and doesn't alter the content search order based on commercial interests, but rather focuses on actual relevance and currency. An article that has the key word repeated several times in the first paragraphs gets a higher score than an article that is mainly about a competitor product and mentions the keyword toward the end of the article.
Many criticize Google's search tactics, yet most uses like google so much that they come to google first, and often find the results of other search engiines as a result of their google search.
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The one form of censorship Google does do is allowing publishers to exclude their content from the search engine. If ABC doesn't want Google to search their content, they can exclude themselves, but then Google will refer users to other content and competitor publishers. Since Google doesn't do any filtering of the found page, and just goes to the link, any advertizing in the found content is there for the user to follow, so the publisher can get revenue from traffic sent by Google.
Some search engines try to “frame” the content, and try to claim that THEY are the referrer to the ad, which can be really annoying to publishers. Others try to filter out the ads and only put up the editorial content, which again deprives the publisher of revenue generating opportunities.
Google combines content that people actually want to read, with ads that they will want to read, and as a result gets a much higher referrals per views rate, which makes them much more inclined to want to pay for links on Google.
Any other company that wants to follow that formula can also do very well, if they have a large fast index, they can easily compete with Google.
The problem is that most companies who have search engines that are “better” usually have their own agenda, and are NOT keeping the needs of the search engine USER first. They keep thinking that their customers are the people who buy the advertising, and forget that if the user doesn't see the ad, and click into a significant number of ads they see, there won't be that much revenue.
Jun 30, 2009
And… this is related to Google and its antitrust investigations by the Department of Justice how?