G faces legal action from regulators

[murph]

Just read piece in Times... G...

"faces legal action from American & European regulators over alleged breaches of competition and privacy laws."

"FTC is considering suing for stifling competition on the internet by manipulating search rankings to favour its own products, according to leaked documents."

 

[murph]

Anyone else see this? Surprised its not been more widely discussed...

 

[tifosi]

Not heard of this. Not a surprise though. I did mention it in a thread here somewhere last week, I think in the EMD thread.

Seems BigG has forgotten it's mantra to 'do no evil' and has gone down the corporate route of the almighty dollar first.

 

[murph]

That's what I mean, it is something we've all wondered about, looks like something's started...

 

[mally]

any company with shareholders will turn to the dark side.

Should be run as a non profit company

 

[Brassneck]

any company with shareholders will turn to the dark side.

Should be run as a non profit company

Like Nominet you mean?

 

[mally]

yep to an extent

 

[ratboy]

Like Nominet you mean?

ha

 

[Brassneck]

ha

Glad you noticed the irony!

 

[Nova]

I just find G is full of double standards. They tell everyone to focus on building quality sites, not to overload their sites with ads to ensure when people visit its a good user experiance. Yet they dont practice what they preach on their "site". When I use G to search nowadays, I see 3-4 ads at the top of the page, ads down the side and another 3-4 ads down the bottom. How's that a good user experiance?

Most people know that the majority of users click on the top 2 sites at the top of page 1. These pages could be totally cr@p but because they pay, their at the top. I know G is a business but 1-2 ads at the top of the page is surely enough? I am worried G is changing into a cash grabber. Just making money at the expense of sacrificing quality. I used to really like G but I'm losing interest in it.*

 

[jezz]

G should not be allowed to set up services that rival their advertisers.

They take data from PPC and then try to steal the businesses of their own advertisers.

Imagine if a TV company did this, setting up their own price comparison sites and then endlessly promoting them with free advertising at the expense of their paying advertisers.

Google say competition isonly a click away, the same is true for TV, but I am sure if Rupert Murdoch controlled 90+% (G have close to this in the UK)of the market there would be some form of intervention.