Google Responds to AdWords Accusations

An anonymous reader writes "Google has issued a statement on the Inside AdWords Blog. Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word 'precedent' in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team to get their point across." From the post: "Being rather proud of AdWords as a means to effectively advertise one's products or services, it seems natural to use it ourselves. Since it's a common practice across the industry for companies to promote their own products and services through their own web presence, there is much precedent to do this. It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface."

Comments

Oooh, "precedent"!

[DrEldarion]

Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word 'precedent' in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team to get their point across.

I use the word "precedent" all the time. Apparently I can go around telling people I'm a lawyer now. Sweet.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[Anonymous Coward]

I always use the term "antecedent" myself, so I must be a historian.

Coincidence? Apparently that would be politics, or some other criminal activity.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[aberson]

Guess we won't need good ole "IANAL" anymore...

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[kajoob]

A real lawyer would have thrown in "reasonable person" and "It depends" for good measure.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[AK Marc]

I use the word "precedent" all the time. Apparently I can go around telling people I'm a lawyer now. Sweet.

Well, Google did set the precedent.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[houghi]

I do not think it means, what you think it means.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[eric_brissette]

You Anal?

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[vertinox]

IANAL, but I play one on Slashdot.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[gunnk]

Or at least would have ended with some latin phrase or two... maybe as a footnote. Perhaps even like a sig file.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[darkmeridian]

They didn't use "precedent" to refer to case law, so I don't see what's so legal about that. Precedent is a real English word, you know, not some special legal term.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[Paradise Pete]

I use the word "precedent" all the time. Apparently I can go around telling people I'm a lawyer now.

Of course you can. In fact, there's even a...what's that word? You know, when something has already happened and it's considered a reasonable example? Darn it all. Well anyway, it's already been done.

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[jonadab]

> I use the word "precedent" all the time. Apparently I can go around telling people I'm a
> lawyer now. Sweet.

Indeed, just think of the precedent that sets. If mere vocabulary now determines profession, can I start throwing around medical terminology and become a doctor?

Re:Oooh, "precedent"!

[aussie_a]

Well considering precedent is no more an law term then say "and" or "that" I'd say there are very specific and special words that allows you to become a professional in a certain field simply by using them. While we now know that precedent is one of these special words, we unfortunately don't know the word that will miraculously transform us into a doctor. Although if you keep reading slashdot I'm sure you'll eventually discover it.

Leaps of logic

[DragonWriter]

Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word 'precedent' in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team to get their point across.

To bad you can't mod the summary as "Funny".

Nice

[Anonymous Crowhead]

They probably set the max per click they'll pay to $10000. It's not like they have to pay for it.

Re:Nice

[Joe Decker]

Check your dictionary under "opportunity cost." I make photographs, I frame the photographs I sell. If I take one out of inventory and put it up on my wall instead of putting it into a gallery or cafe, I'm very much paying for it, even if I don't "have to pay for it."

Re:Nice

[E 99]

They probably set the max per click they'll pay to $10000. It's not like they have to pay for it.

Actually they would. The ads that show up on Google search are the same ads that show up through their Ad Sense program on other people's website. So if they bid $10000 per click, they'd end up paying that (half of it, IIRC, and keeping half) for clicks on other web sites.

And they still pay when it's on their own web site, though not as much. They force another ad out of the #1 spot, and they force the bottom ad out altogether. That's less click-through revenue for them.

Re:Nice

[maxume]

Assuming you aren't heavily back-ordered, the opportunity cost is going to be relatively small. The same holds true for Google; unless I am horribly misunderstanding it, they are still charging the second and third place bidders quite a bit for spots 2 and 3, so they are missing out on whatever the bid is for spot 4(actually, it looks like they show ~8 ads for 'spreadsheet, so spot 8) and whatever amount the losing bidders would have paid to move up a spot.

I bet they manage the opportunity cost very aggressively, seeing as Adwords is their core business.

Re:Nice

[TubeSteak]

I imagine Google makes more from whatever they fictionally pay themselves than the opportunity cost.

Even if they didn't, it could still make sense, if for no other reason than to build Google Brand awareness.

Those are the kinds of things that marketing/advertising pros sit around and think about.

Re:Nice

[Skater]

Why did Google even bother responding to this accusation? They would've been much better off to ignore it. It's their company, they can do what they want for advertising, and if the external customers have a problem with how they operate, they'll go elsewhere. The anti-google crowd won't be happy with any explanation Google would give, anyway.

But, now here it is, refreshed in our memories, giving the accusation more publicity.

Re:Nice

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why did Google even bother responding to this accusation? They would've been much better off to ignore it. It's their company, they can do what they want for advertising"

Because NO they can't, they are very close to a monopoly on web advertising, when that happens the government then decides what they can and can't do and showing any favouritism to themselves would be in conflict with anti trust laws.

Re:Nice

[juniorbird]

Most large corporations with divisions that have multiple products have something known as "internal transfer prices" -- the price that one division charges another division for the product it produces. Transfer prices aren't play money; when one division buys from another division, that money moves from one division's budget to another division's budget -- it disappears just as completely as if a check were cut to an external vendor. So, in this case, the AdWords revenues go up by the transfer price and, say, the Docs and Spreadsheet expenses go up by that price as well. It may seem like play money, but, for everybody below Executive VP level, those are probably two completely different budgets. To Sergey and Larry, sure, it's moving money from their right pocket to their left, but for their employees it's money out of their department or division's budget. The folks in charge of AdWords are highly incentivized by their bottom line to get as much money as possible from Maps, Blogger, etc.

Transfer prices are sometimes mildly discounted in order to provide some incentive for companies to use internal vendors, but there's about 40 years of very clear business history that shows that artifically discounting transfer prices in order to keep your divisions buying internally is really awful for both the buying and selling division (see: just about all of US heavy industry since 1970). As a matter of practice, it's unlikely that Google's various divisions would get a very discounted internal transfer price just on that basis. Beyond that, it's clear that AdWords's main limitation is space inventory -- they could sell more ads, they just don't have any place to put them. That's why Google has their new radio advertising program, and that's why a lot of people think that they bought YouTube. So, AdWords is unlikely to discount their internal transfer price based on this as well. Heck, if other Google divisions complain, this is just a good way for AdWords execs to say "give us more resources to expand our advertising inventory, then we can make all the other divisions happy."

So, anyway, yes they have to pay for it, and it's likely they pay full price.

Re:Nice

[hankwang]

So if they bid $10000 per click, they'd end up paying that

Only if there's another bidder who offers $9999 per click. At least, that's what I understand of the adwords bidding system. If there are no other bidders, you just pay $0.05 per click. And if you bid $100, one competitor $99, and a third one $0.05, then you will pay $99.05, the second one $0.06, and the third one $0.05, or something like that.

Re:Nice

[Matthaeus]

Thank you for posting about opportunity cost. It needs to be brought up by someone in this discussion.

I would like to elaborate on your example, though.

The limiting factor in how many photos you sell is the demand, not the supply. If you take a photo out of inventory and hang it on your own wall, you're out your own cost to print that photograph (and, if it's the last photograph of that type and someone wants to buy it before you've had time to print another, you may be out that sale. Let's assume this doesn't happen.). Since you own the original work, you can easily make another. Your supply is not (effectively) limited.

Google's ad space, however, is supply-limited. Let's assume for the moment that they did have a $1,000,000 max cost per click and an unlimited daily budget on the keyword "tribble euthanasia." They're always going to win the top spot. Now, if "tribble euthanasia" was worth $25 per click on the open market and demand for the page space exceeded supply, then they would be potentially losing a $25 impression every time they show their own ad instead of a client's ad.

If I were a company owner (I'm not) or a corporate accountant (also not), I'd want to be able to track this. The easiest way to track this opportunity cost is to have Google bid for Adwords just like everyone else.

From TFA: "As does any advertiser, we aim to give our campaigns a budget which is in line with their value to us in terms of the increased traffic we might see. We actively monitor and manage the success of our ads by adjusting ad copy, keywords, bids, and so forth in the same way any advertiser who is concerned with their account performance would."

Google goes on to mention that, due to wanting to ensure the relevance of Adwords, Google doesn't even try to maintain the top spot. They run their campaigns like everyone else should be.

The economics of the situation show that it doesn't make sense for Google to engage in bidding wars with their own Adwords...because they might win.

Re:Nice

[Joe Decker]

Google's ad space, however, is supply-limited.

I beg to differ. In most of the products markets I advertise in, and in most of the product markets that get advertise on my sites, Google is able to fill the entire set of ad slots. If Google's ad space were supply-limited, I would expect this not to be the case.

Heck, I put up a site (using blogger), and this is way TMI, discussing the circumstances around a recent colonoscopy, and the ad units on even that site are always filled.

Re:Nice

[Matthaeus]

The supply in this case is the number of slots. Google only has so many of those slots in which to put ads. The demand is the number of ads that want to be placed in these slots. In economic terms, the slots and the exposure to the market that they represent are the scarce resource.

I don't think you're wrong; I think you misunderstood me.

Re:Nice

[Joe Decker]

Agreed, my mistake.

And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser.

I think they forgot, "...only we have unlimited play money we can allocate toward each search phrase, so we can ensure Google ads always beat out the paid ads from the unwashed masses."

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[damiangerous]

No, they covered that aspect and denied it.

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[7macaw]

And just whom do they pay for that click? ;)

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[shark72]

"I think they forgot, "...only we have unlimited play money we can allocate toward each search phrase, so we can ensure Google ads always beat out the paid ads from the unwashed masses.""

This is referred to as "opportunity cost." In this case, if they take an ad spot, they lose the opportunity to sell that ad spot to somebody else. If they, for example, get a discounted price of $20 for internal accounting purposes, and it would have sold at $100 on the open market, that's an $80 opportunity cost.

All companies, big and small, in all industries, deal with opportunity costs like these. I help run a company that makes computer peripherals, and we sell our products to our employees and channel partners at 50% off. We can only build so many of them (assembly lines are a resource that must be allocated), and each product that we sell to our employees is a product for which we could have made more money selling at retail.

If anybody reading this thinks for a bit, I'm sure it will be trivial how the concept of the "opportunity cost" affects you, either at your job, or in your personal life.

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[silentounce]

Didn't we already have this discussion here?

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[Java Pimp]

In this case, if they take an ad spot, they lose the opportunity to sell that ad spot to somebody else.

I think the original argument from yesterday's article was that they actually DID sell that ad spot to somebody else... Then, that somebody else got bumped to the number two spot and Google took the top spot for themselves.

Re:And they get unlimited money to price clicks...

[vadim_t]

This is a bit different if you sell an actual product though. For google, the cost of delivering their own ad, and delivering somebody else's ad is effectively the same, and there are no intermediaries.

Now, you make periperhals. Let's say you make a keyboard that costs $5 to produce, which you sell to a store for $10 and which the user gets for $20. Also, if the $10 price is: $5 production + $3 profit + $2 transport costs, you could sell it to your own employees for $8 and earn exactly the same amount of money as before, while charging much below what it costs in a shop.

Except that it's internal "funny money"

[sdo1]

It's internal book keeping money. Funny money. No real cash changes hands like it does with between other advertisers and Google.

-S

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[mspohr]

Basic economics... consider the term "opportunity cost".

This does cost Google money. If they sell the words to themselves, then they are not receiving money from someone else for the words. Hence, it costs them money and they do not have an unlimited budget.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[Myopic]

Yes. And furthermore the opportunity cost is equal to the price paid by the otherwise highest bidder for that search term. So, if google wants to own a term, they lose out not only on some amount of money, but the maximum amount of money the market would bear.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[xenocide2]

Sure, it costs them money. There's evidence that they do decide how much money each spot they take is worth rather than simply take the first slot- gmail is the second sponsored link for "email" currently. And I see no reason why they shouldn't do it. But it is a bit unfair -- I imagine that unlike their competitors, they can know all the bids out there and their competitor's effectiveness.

Although I do wonder, what's the marginal cost of an ad on a google search result? How much does it cost google to serve up one more advert? For websense clients (or whatever they call it when they pay you to put their ads on your website), I can imagine that the cost would be primarily enrollment rates. The more invasive your system the less people want to submit their readers to that. So they err on the side of little, I imagine. But currently, their search results page seems to cut off the Sponsored Links sidebar before the "page" is over. For searches like Windows, there's more campaigns than there is space to list them all as currently laid out. Would they really lose search results for something as unobtrusive as extending the side bar one more entry? I don't even want to think about the complexities involved with deciding how many results per page should be served.

The scarcity of space they control can lead to a strong competitive advantage. They know what bid it takes to make the front page, they know what bid it takes to make the top 3 links, etc. If I were for some reason trying to compete with Google and advertising using Google (which itself seems counter-productive), I do think I'd call it somewhat unfair. But that's life.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[Jherek Carnelian]

And furthermore the opportunity cost is equal to the price paid by the otherwise highest bidder for that search term. So, if google wants to own a term, they lose out not only on some amount of money, but the maximum amount of money the market would bear.

Don't adwords work by ordering the ad results by highest bidder?

If so, then Google has no opportunity cost here. The highest, non google bidder just gets the 2nd slot instead of the 1st slot.

The only opportunity cost would come from potential advertisers who decide that if they can't have the top slot, they will not buy any ad at all. My guess is that such people are fairly rare and of those, most probably just look for a new keyword for which they are not in competition with google for top slot.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not going to ask the question of whether you know how adwords work, because it's clear that you don't. What I am going to ask, though, is whether you knew you didn't know how they worked, and just assumed, or whether you didn't even know your own ignorance. Neither speaks well of you.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[silentounce]

It's described better here.

"And when I **** my wife, I'm denying myself the revenue of a third-party john who might have rented her for that slot. Thus, in a very real sense, I pay the same rate as everyone else."

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[Dominic_Mazzoni]

Don't adwords work by ordering the ad results by highest bidder?

No.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[owlnation]

Not quite. You need to model it more fully. Yes, there is opportunity cost in not receiving money form other advertisers. However, they can gain tax benefits from reassigning large quantities of revenue that would otherwise be taxable profit to Adwords campaigns.

It's pretty much win win. I'm fine with it personally, it seems to me to be perfectly reasonable to me that a company would promote itself using it's own products. Especially when in many cases their products are the best in their class. For me the only caveat I have over Adwords is the click fraud issue which I feel is a significant one. I use Adwords, and every time I set up a campaign I wonder if I'm just donating money to Google.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[2short]

"Don't adwords work by ordering the ad results by highest bidder?"

No, or at least not entirely, since I can't claim to perfectly understand how the ranking does work. But even if they did work that way, and even if Google just magiaclly awarded themselves the top slot (whcih it appears they don't), taking the top slot would presumably mean the next non-google bidder would be willing to pay somewhat less for slot number two, and there's your cost to Google. If a bidder is willing to pay just as much when the best they can do if slot number two, then clearly they think slot numbers 1 & 2 are equally valuable, so they should have no complaint about which one they get.

One way or another, opportunity cost really is real, and so there is no such thing as a free lunch. Google understands this, and so their marketing department acts like just another customer of their ad-selling department, and both the cost and income presumably go on their seperate balance sheets; the fact that the customer they are selling ads to is actually just a diferent division of the same company is interesting trivia, but doesn't make the ads cost any less.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[Jherek Carnelian]

From your link it sure sounds like it is primarily based on who pays the most when the relevance is equal:

Your keyword-targeted ad is ranked on search results and content pages based on its maximum cost-per-click ... and Quality Score.
...
We use a rank number to help determine an ad's position on a search results page. The higher the rank number, the higher the position of the ad.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[mspohr]

There is no "tax advantage" here.

If Google spends "internal budget" money on adwords, it's the same as if they spent money on external advertising (i.e. buy advertising on Yahoo). They either have lower income (less tax) or greater advertising expenses (less tax). It's a wash.

Re:Except that it's internal "funny money"

[euice]

It's internal book keeping money. Funny money. No real cash changes hands like it does with between other advertisers and Google.

It could be real money though...

They open s safe on building a, put some dollars into a black leather case and two agent smith like personel walk to building b and transfer the money to the safe there.

We will never know...

Hmmm

[ubrgeek]

Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface.
So what's good for the goose is good for the gander? How does this mean that the system might still not work?

Think about it...

[TheSHAD0W]

When Google uses this "play money" they lose the opportunity to make money from outside. It *is* an advertising budget; without it, Google would beat out EVERYTHING, but its revenue would trickle to a crawl. The best way to play the game would be to allocate a budget just like it was using someone else's service; that keeps everything under control.

Re:Think about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, total and utter evil, just like when NBC runs an ad for their show.

Re:Think about it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite. Google auctions those ad positions to the highest bidder. The second place bidder (behind Google) may be paying the same amount. They may in fact be paying more.

Re:Think about it...

[synx]

you also don't understand how the ranking of ads in pages works either. You cannot pay for the top position, end of story. An critical aspect is the click thru rate, without a good CTR no matter how much you bid you will be forced lower and lower and eventually off the sponsored links altogether.

The brilliance of the adwords system is the dependency of CTR - essentally relevance. Ads which have high CTR have high relevancy and thus are positioned better and those advertisers pay _less_. Don't believe me? Open an adwords account and play with it. About $10-20 total should give you enough time to figure out how it works.

Weasel words

[Captain Kirk]

From TFA "As does any advertiser, we aim to give our campaigns a budget"

Come on, what you are doing is bidding whatever it takes to get the sport you want.

That pushes up the price for everyone else. Good for you but bad for your customers.

There is never a case where you lie awake at night worrying if you have bid too much.

"Do no evil" is a great motto and Google is a great company. I feel that they have not considered this from the point of view of Adwords buyers. I'd be surprised if they are still doing it in 12 months. Google would no longer be the Google we love if they are.

Re:Weasel words

[Qzukk]

I'd be surprised if they are still doing it in 12 months.

And in a year we'll see Fox advertising NBC shows? The New York Times with a full page ad for the Washington Post? Maybe I'll buy a new car from Honda and the license plate frame will read "Have you driven a Ford lately?" Let's go all out: preachers extolling the virtues of Zen Buddhism!

A brave new world indeed.

Re:Weasel words

[gt_mattex]

Google would no longer be the Google we love if they are.

I almost see this as the start of Google's path to Microsoft villainy.

For those who don't like the MS comparative how about Sony?

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

"Do no evil" is a great motto and Google is a great company.

I think "Do the maximum amount of good" is a better motto, plus you wouldn't have to defend against every nitpicky argument over a tiny bit of evil in a whole bunch of good.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a better motto is "Do Better". No matter what, even if you screw up, you can always trot out the motto that "You'll Do Better" next time.

Re:Weasel words

[MDMurphy]

It's not ads, but I've always been impressed by what you get if you search Google and and are offered maps as options.

Search Google for "map san francisco" at almost the top of the page you'll see links for :

          Map of San Francisco, CA
                    Google Maps - Yahoo! Maps - MapQuest

You could argue about them being first, but they give you links to two other popular mapping sites right up top.

Do the same search on Yahoo! Lower than the Yahoo map you'll find a link to MapQuest, but nowhere on the page is Google.

So is that Google advertising Yahoo for free?

Re:Weasel words

[synx]

I think it's important to realize that the adwords system is not just a straightforward action model. The overture model is straight auction, which is why adwords is superior to overture - the highest bidder does NOT always win.

A critical piece of any adwords auction is the click thru rate, aks CTR. Any experienced adwords advertiser knows that their CTR is the most valuable aspect of their ad. A higher CTR ensures you pay _LESS_ per click (even if your bid is higher), and the ranking algorithm uses relevancy, as measured by CTR as a major indicator of what should be first.

Simply put, even Google can't bid their ads to #1 position. If Google's own ads are doing well and are in the #1 position, then it is because they are more relevant than the other ads.

So to characterize it as google using unlimited "funny money" to permanently secure #1 advertiser spot is just simply wrong.

Re:Weasel words

[poticlin]

You could argue about them being first, but they give you links to two other popular mapping sites right up top.

There is no arguing here, or advertisement either... it is basic search engine algorithm. Yahoo, MSN, and Google don't use the same Algorithm, that is why Google was very popular very fast they were arguably much more efficient then the others and IMHO still are.

Re:Weasel words

[modeless]

They only do that because they used to before Google Maps was around. I'd be willing to bet that if they added this feature today, Google Maps would be the only option.

Re:Weasel words

[DarkMagician07]

Don't be surprised if in the future you do see it.

I have heard a lot more local TV news stations that are affiliates of NBC or ABC advertise on the local CBS radio stations. The same for NBC advertising on the local ABC station, since the NBC station no longer exists.

You also see stuff on TV for the same. The local Fox and (before it became CW) WB stations would cross advertise all of hte time, and you couldn't go to any of the local channels without seeing an ad for Enterprise back when it was on the air.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

"And in a year we'll see Fox advertising NBC shows? The New York Times with a full page ad for the Washington Post? Maybe I'll buy a new car from Honda and the license plate frame will read "Have you driven a Ford lately?" Let's go all out: preachers extolling the virtues of Zen Buddhism!"

You seem to totally miss the point, what they are doing is perfectly fine and legal, UNTIL they get declared a monopoly, then just like MS the government will screw them badly, any sort of favouritism or exclusion (even of competitors) becomes completely illegal. They are very close to an advertising monopoly now and under anti trust laws what they can and can't do completely changes, Just ask MS. Even if it is their worst enemy that wants to buy number 1 advertising spot on there site they would have to be treated the same as anyone else if declared a monopoly, yes EVEN if that means they are advertising another companies Web Advertising business.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon used to have a section for restaurant info (only in a few cities, e.g. Seattle). For a while, Google would show links like Restaurant Foo read about it on Amazon. Google charged Amazon for those links. I suspect that they also charge Yahoo and MapQuest for their links.

Classic Obfuscation

[mpapet]

At the end of the day they pay themselves the highest rate for those adwords? I think the accountants/SEC would have something to say about that.

Sure, some admin uses the same interface but the statement ends there for obvious reasons.

It will be interesting to see if there is bottom-line quarter-reporting implications to this practice.

Re:Classic Obfuscation

[Anonymous Coward]

How so?

One Google department has an expense of $X. Another has revenue of $X. Total profit/loss of the transactions: zero.

Re:Classic Obfuscation

[leoc]

Out of curiosity, I wonder if the accountants at the SEC ever investigate the ads TV stations play for their own shows during prime time?

Re:Classic Obfuscation

[Myopic]

In fact yes they pay themselves *exactly* the highest rate for those adwords, because "paying themselves" is the same as saying "not getting paid by someone else". I mean, when google takes an adword, they are no longer paid for that adword by the person who otherwise would have paid the most for it. It is possible that google literally pays itself, but even if it doesn't, it still costs them in lost revenue, and this point is surely not lost on their accountants.

Common Sense

[X43B]

I don't get what all the furor was about it in the first place. Has anyone watched any television channel out there?

NBC does a crap-ton of promos for their other shows as does every other station.

I don't get why a company can't use their own products to promote themselves.

Also I don't get the monopoly argument. Google--Yahoo--MSN Search is no where near the dominance that Windows--EveryoneElse is.

Also part of a monopoly is barriers to entrance. It is so incredibly brain-dead easy to stop typing google.com and start typing yahoo.com or newsearch.com if one day I don't like to use Google. There is no OS creator that can make it that easy to switch OS's.

1) Google doesn't have a monopoly, there are real viable competitors with real market share and it is incredibly easy for new compeitors to enter the market

2) Every company in the world uses their own products to promote themselves

Re:Common Sense

[gt_mattex]

NBC does a crap-ton of promos for their other shows as does every other station.

NBC has competition. While you could argue that so does Google...well you really can't.

Re:Common Sense

[FunkeyMonk]

To take this comment a bit further -- not only does NBC do a "crap-ton" of promos for their own shows, but they do it alongside ads that they're selling to other companies.

If I buy a Nike shirt, it has a Nike logo on it.

What surprises me most about this whole thing is that Google even feels a need to respond at all!

Re:Common Sense

[businessnerd]

NBC has competition. While you could argue that so does Google...well you really can't.

Um, the OP did argue that point, and very accurately at that.

Also I don't get the monopoly argument. Google--Yahoo--MSN Search is no where near the dominance that Windows--EveryoneElse is.

I'm not really sure where the confusion is here. GOOGLE IS NOT A FUCKING MONOPOLY!

Re:Common Sense

[missing000]

NBC has competition. While you could argue that so does Google...well you really can't.

Sure They Do

Re:Common Sense

[gt_mattex]

OP argued without links, but so did I.

Google may not technically be a monopoly however it's market share is rising and Google is plenty on it's way to becoming a monopoly.

Lastly, as the person who decides where my companies online advertising budget gets spent I have to tell you that Google overwhelmingly provides much of my traffic. Far more than those charts are showing. Many of my constituents have confessed similar circumstances.

P.S. This is a discussion, not a shouting match.

Re:Common Sense

[TheBigBezona]

And, amusingly, they aren't even the first result in that search.

Re:Common Sense

[slofstra]

NBC advertising their own shows is quite a different thing from Google advertising their products. No-one would object to Google ads touting themselves as the best search index or telling us about other search index features. Your analogy of NBC to Google would only apply if NBC sold items other than TV shows. For example, if NBC sold books, advertised them on their stations and used Oprah to promo them (I don't know - is Oprah on NBC? assume she is). That would put Simon & Shuster and other publishers at a distinct disadvantage in launching their own product as best sellers. Now can you see why software companies might not like Google advertising its own software products?

Re:Common Sense

[Paradise Pete]

I don't get why a company can't use their own products to promote themselves.

In this case, the cost of acquiring a customer is based in part on what others are willing to pay to Google. If one of those "others" is Google itself, you can see how it might look a little funny.

Re:Common Sense

[julesh]

Anyone else notice that the descriptions on the top 6 results there seem to have been written as an editorial introduction to the pages, and not collected from the site metadata like descriptions in search results normally are?

Any ideas where those descriptions came from?

Re:Common Sense

[rthille]

Wow, I never realized how much of an inferiority complex google has. I mean, they think that search.msn.com is a better result for the query "search engine".

Wow, just freaking wow!

Re:Common Sense

[Dave2 Wickham]

They come from dmoz (or, more accurately, from Google Directory, which is their local "mirror" of dmoz - last time I checked it tended to be out of date).

Re:Common Sense

[hasrat]

I am sure they would happily put whatever search engine you want on top as long as you keep using Google to find your search engine.

Re:Common Sense

[mjeffers]

NBC is owned by GE and GE advertises it's products on NBC so it's exactly the same. 20th Century Fox's movies are shown on Fox television and Fox recently got in trouble for that OJ interview based on a book published by a News Corp (Fox News' parent company) publisher. You'll also see ads for 20th Century Fox movies in the NY Post (owned by News Corp) so it's not just a TV thing either.

This is not an uncommon practice in any other industry. Google has done nothing wrong and the GP is right to say the only thing odd about this is they felt the need to respond at all.

Mike

"I'm not a crook!"

[MollyB]

said the crook. (Nixon, for you youngsters)

Proof

[franksands]

So far I call shenanigans. I've seen a lot of these articles here and on other sites. Anyone has real proof of google products appearing always in first place in its searches and/or ads?

Re:Proof

[syzler]

This shows a tendency to be listed first:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=calendar& btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=free+emai l&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=email&btn G=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=online+sh opping&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=instant+m essaging&btnG=Search

This is the only search I could find with google adds in which they were not listed first:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=web+adver tising&btnG=Search

Re:Proof

[MrCopilot]

http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&saf e=off&q=spreadsheet&btnG=Search

Re:Proof

[kenb215]

Nobody bids specifically for the highest place. Ad positions change as the frequency they are clicked changed. Right now, the one you listed as not first is at the top. A different search has their ad in third place. In a few hours, the ads will have likely shifted again.

Re:Proof

[SL Baur]

Google was at the top of every one of your searches, including the last one, when I tried it.

MOD PARENT UP

[brunes69]

It's the exact same dillemma TV networks have. If they spend too much advertising time advertising their own shows, then they don't make enough money from REAL advertisers. But if they don't spend enough, no one knows about their new shows.

I don't see who Google's situation is any different AT ALL. They very likely do the same thing TV networks do, the station has its own "budget" of time they can allocate to promos, and they don't exceed it.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[MDMurphy]

That's the precedent I first thought of when I read their post.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[rudy_wayne]

"It's the exact same dillemma TV networks have. If they spend too much advertising time advertising their own shows, then they don't make enough money from REAL advertisers. But if they don't spend enough, no one knows about their new shows. I don't see who Google's situation is any different AT ALL."

The television analogy is wrong because the TV networks don't sell anything other than ad time. Google, on the other hand, sells lots of other products and services besides Internet search.

Suppose that NBC wasn't just a TV network. Suppose that they also manufactured automobiles, in direct competition with Ford, General Motors and all the other car companies. If the other car companies couldn't buy any prime commercial time because NBC was using it all to promote their own cars, they would be pissed.

Also, advertisers actually benefit from TV networks promoting their own shows. When a TV network advertises its own programs, it (hopefully) results in more viewers, which (hopefully) means that more people see the commercials, which benefits the companies who buy advertising time on those shows -- more people see the commercials and (hopefully) buy the advertised products.

When Google commandeers certain key search words for itself, it benefits only Google and no one else.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Tim C]

The television analogy is wrong because the TV networks don't sell anything other than ad time.

They don't see DVDs of their shows, and licence merchandising rights? The ones in the UK certainly do.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this refute the idea of opportunity costs? Economically speaking, NBC-the-network is not the same as NBC-the-advertiser. What if the car companies couldn't buy any prime commercial time because Toyota was outbidding them?

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[tgibbs]

TV shows compete with movies and other entertainments that advertise on TV.

But that is not the point. Every ad slot has a value, defined by what somebody else will pay to put an ad it it. If a network puts its own ads in that slot, they lose the money that slot would have delivered if sold to a 3rd party advertiser. The simplest way to manage this is simply for the network to assign itself a budget at the same rate that 3rd parties pay. Even though this is actually only moving money from one pocket to another, it provides a way for the network to keep track of and control what its own advertising is costing it.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[Montag2k]

Suppose that NBC wasn't just a TV network. Suppose that they also manufactured automobiles, in direct competition with Ford, General Motors and all the other car companies. If the other car companies couldn't buy any prime commercial time because NBC was using it all to promote their own cars, they would be pissed.

NBC isn't just a TV network - they are owned by GE. I'm sure that it would be easy to come up with a similar comparison between GE and its competitors. Other people don't seem to have a problem with it for the TV networks. ABC is Disney-owned, and I think CBS is Westinghouse-owned. Also: You don't see a lot of advertising for programs on one network for another network (unless they have the same owners).

Cheers,
Montag

funny quote

[dakrin9]

"In fact, we generally aim for a more 'conservative' position."

objection: unresponsive. Move to strike

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe this is a "response" to the article headlined "How much does Google pay for adwords?"

Same "guidelines", same "algorithms", same "policies", but notice how they never say "same price".

Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give...

[Assmasher]

...'Google' as #1 then, don't you think?

Shill bids

[Anonymous Coward]

So they are bidding internally on their adwords, driving the price up, and causing their customer to pay more?

That is called shill bidding. It is generally considered unethical for an auction house to do that.

Some might even call it...

<pinky finger to corner of mouth>
...Evil.
</pinky finger to corner of mouth>

Still competing against their customers

[slofstra]

Selling a service to customers who compete with you in other areas is always a dicey strategy. It's also known as vertical integration - controlling multiple levels in the supply chain. The risk with that strategy is that lower levels in the supply chain which you control may have difficulty selling their product to your competitors. If I was a spreadsheet or mapping software company (Microsoft), would I use Google to advertise? If I had currency handling (Paypal) software would I use Google to advertise? Not if I could help it - why help the competition. Unless the competition has a monopoly, then you have to deal with them. If Google becomes a major software player they may have to divest the search business and set it up as a wholly owned subsidiary working at arm's length.

Re:Still competing against their customers

[iamacat]

If I was a word processing company, would I port my product to Windows?
If I wanted to process online payments, would I accept Visa?
If my co-worker is a competitor for the same promotion, would I come to him/her for work issues?

When you make a decision to get involved with a 3rd party, 99% percent of the time you should just try to get a better deal in that particular transaction rather than considering potential competition through several layers of indirection. Otherwise, you will end up not getting a good deal for anything. A while ago, Slashdot covered popularity of iPod among Microsoft employees and their extensive use of google to search MSDN. Good for them!

Re:Still competing against their customers

[slofstra]

Whether you should or should not work with a competitor depends on how much harm extends from doing so. The examples you cite aren't very good ones. Years ago in our town you had to drive an American car to do business with auto suppliers - which was nonsense. Similarly with Microsoft employees using iPods. It does no harm to Microsoft for them to do so.

But your example of the "word processing company" is a quite different matter. There's no question that Wordperfect for Windows could not compete against Word and that was the end of WordPerfect. Unfortunately, there was no operating system alternative for WordPerfect to work with so they were done for dinner at the moment Microsoft decided to develop a word processor.

The whole business of alliances and who works with who is complicated and interesting and does not come down to the best deal or the best alternative winning out in any given situation.

Companies tend to work within one layer in an industry in order to avoid competing with their customers. It happens all the time. I once worked for a software company that was bought by a hardware vendor. They had to withdraw some of their software offerings to avoid competing with the hardware vendor's dealers (who wrote and sold competing software).

The companies that go 'vertical', do so when they think they can knock out everyone else in the layer. Take Microsoft going into Accounting software. They make enemies (okay, competitors) out of Accounting software vendors that used to support them. So if Microsoft is going to move into another layer - they better do it in a big way.

So what!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's my reply to all this AdSense hysteria. Google doesn't pay crap for ads and costs more than it's worth to display ads. As soon as the customers learn just how much of a rip-off AdSense is, they'll move to better ad services.

Here's an example where AdSense paid less than $3 for over 400,000 impressions over a week:

http://users.upstate.net/zoom/adsense_fraud2.gif

AdSense isn't worth even bother with.

Re:So what!

[synx]

You are aware that the original post is about AdWords?

As for not making money on AdSense - are you not paid for the CLICKS? That you only got 5 clicks in 400,000 impressions is not necessairly google's fault. Now if you had some comment re: the quality of placed ads, then there might be something to talk about.

Re:So what!

[Anonymous Coward]

by synx (29979) on Friday December 08, @03:40PM (#17166572)

You are aware that the original post is about AdWords?

As for not making money on AdSense - are you not paid for the CLICKS? That you only got 5 clicks in 400,000 impressions is not necessairly google's fault. Now if you had some comment re: the quality of placed ads, then there might be something to talk about.

I have no idea who you are replying to or why, as slashdot's moderation system totally destroys any continuity on threads so if you do not quote the post you are replying to we have no idea what you're talking about because inevitably the post you are replying to will be modded down while your reply is modded up... OK now that I have that rant out of the way...

It is common practice for Google to unjustly suspend marginal Adsense accounts just before they reach the first payout threshold, very common. Often no recourse is provided. I have seen plenty of honest hosts drop out of Adsense becasue Google pulls this trick to avoid paying out.

Enron-like crash looming?

[bigattichouse]

Ok.. so google pays itself for clicks.. say 10000 clicks a day at some arbitrarily high number like $10000/click. So, will Google then report that as SALES? .. ooh today we earned $100,000,000! See Wall street, push our stock value up - we just made a boatload of cash! ... makes me wonder if the emperor is feeling the draft yet.

Re:Enron-like crash looming?

[The Hobo]

Can you say anything if you just ask?

Re:Enron-like crash looming?

[krbvroc1]

Perhaps, but they will also list the same amount as an expense--thus the amounts would cancel out. That is why when you due your due diligence you look beyond the press releases.

Re:Enron-like crash looming?

[xoyoboxoyobo]

It's not fake money. Companies do interdepartment financial transactions all the time. Just because it's Google doesn't make it fishy. If Marketing department has budget of 100 dollars, and AdWords charges Marketing 30 dollars, and Google made 300 dollars total profit ... Marketing has 70 dollars left to spend over the year. Those 30 dollars get added to total expenses. Net profit = 300 - 30 = 270 dollars. Of course this is a highly simplified example, and I'm sure Google shareholders are hoping a net profit something more than 270 bucks...

They do need to pay publishers

[Anonymous Coward]

What about AdSense publishers? They do need to be paid. Haven't you ever seen AdWords (Google's ad program for advertisers) being advertised on an AdSense (Google's ad program for publishers) ad before?

Blame the Lawyers

[fotbr]

Since there's no precedent for any other group using large words included in the english language.

I don't particularly like lawyers in general, but that really was a cheap shot. I expect better out of the lawyer-bashing slashdot crowd.

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[db32]

So...if I run a search engine company, and I make spreadsheet software and you make spreadsheet software and pay me to advertise I shouldn't be allowed to advertise above you for my own product? I should give you an unfair advantage just because? Lets face it, YOU didn't make a giant search engine that basically became the top dog in internet searches, so me giving you preferental treatment over my own products is just stupid. If you are really that upset about me advertising my product on my search engine above where I am advertising your product on my search engine why don't you just go call up Yahoo and advertise with them instead? Oh...you mean being #2 on the results of the most used search engine is still a valuable thing you are willing to pay for?

I mean that is almost as goofy as being upset that AOL and others get charged to advertise their crap on the default Windows desktop, but MS doesn't get charged for the MSN link on there too. I mean while we are at it, we should force Ford to stop putting Ford emblems on their products! We must allow Chevy to pay a fair price to replace every Mustang's Ford emblem with a Chevy emblem too! (I love the slashdot computers = car analogies).

and the top google add for this post is ...

[lderezinski]

It struck me pretty funny that that the top google add for this post was .... (drum roll please) Google AdWords go figure ...

Money spent elsewhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

If say, I had a viable Document and/or Spreadsheet application, I would not use Google to promote it.

Even if I have to spend ALOT$ of money, as it'd require ALOT$ of cash to push Google off the result list, I'd go with another promotion medium (thus spending $ALOT) that would enable me to reach my potential client base. Also, I couldn't trust that Google wouldn't raise the price for AdWords/AdSense

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[Assmasher]

Perhaps you're confused by the fact that Google is claiming to use the exact same criteria for their pages as for pages outside of Google. Now, considering that, tell me how Google should come up #1 for the word 'spreadsheet'? ;)

I haven't seen anybody say Google should discriminate against itself, people are saying Google should give Google priority over others just because they're 'Google' products.

IANAL can go back to its original definition...

[Anonymous Coward]

_I_ am just _ANAL_ retentive :)

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah tell that to your ancestors who killed more people than those "Nigger Savages". Two World wars...yeah i'm going to believe a European asshole.

One huge differnce...

[hal2814]

"It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface."

But Google knows their own search algorithms. I'll bet if I were privvy to the same knowledge, I could make AdWords ads that rival Google's. They play by the same rules but only they know the rules.

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[db32]

Given that they are pretty tight lipped about their criteria who knows. I mean if one of their criteria is response time and the servers are near each other that could do it. There are still a multitude of ways it could come up first without them changing the rules to favor themselves over others.

to be expected

[ritzel]

Google hires away MS's top talent, and people are shocked when they start to act like MS?

Must disclose list of words they are using

[spectro]

That way any potential customer knows beforehand these words are not available for a first place ad, otherwise the word fraud comes to mind.

It's important that this is an auction

[jtappan]

There is an important difference between what Google is doing and what television stations do when they run ads for their own shows: the TV stations don't sell their ads in an auction market (at least not usually).

If Google bids for AdWords (either with funny money or somehow with real money) then it is bidding against its own customers in an auction for its own products. Bidding in your own auction ("shill bidding") has long been considered a fraudulent practice.

Re:It's important that this is an auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Shilling is used to raise the bid. This, on the other hand, is to outbid everyone. That's not really shilling. In a normal auction, who wants to win their own item?

Re:It's important that this is an auction

[Anonymous Coward]

Except this isn't a traditional auction... it's not for one item - everyone pays, even if you come in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc... AND the bids don't reset - everyones bids are, to a certain extent, static. If you can get people to raise their bids it's very likely they will stay raised.

For me, what makes this effectively shill bidding is that there's nothing to indicate that it's not another (normal) competitor out bidding you (Google personalizes and randomizes results so even if you're looking you might not catch it.)

If your Ad simply appeared lower on the page, but your position was still reported as #1 it would simply appear to be lost volume. The problem here however is that your reported position drops. The typical reaction to a lowered position is to raise your bids to get back to position #1. The person who used to be in the 2nd spot and is now in the 3rd will likely do the same (and so on) - since this is an auction everything just got more expensive.(!) Because it's a blind auction there's never any obvious indicator it's time to back bids down either - the price is very likely going to stay higher even after Google stops bidding on the term (keep in mind it only takes one person not lowering their bid after the fact to keep the price higher for everyone if they want to keep their old positions...)

Yes - Google does take a hit in the sense of lost opportunity - they're occupying a position they would normally get paid for, but the end result is very (very) close to shill bidding - Google shows up, everyone increases their bids because they think it's normal competition, Google backs out and now everyones paying a little more then they were before - for exactly the same positions... Scale that up - put some brains behind it, which I think Google has, and it's easy to imagine this tactic being used to artificially inflate everyones costs (which, in effect, is what shill bidding is - and the reason it's illegal.)

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[Assmasher]

Their not tight lipped about their criteria, they're tight lipped about the exact algorithm involved (understandably so), but it still doesn't explain how they rank #1 for spreadsheet. Seriously.

Remember when Google released 'Scholar'? The very next day (this is something other people critical of Google adwords like to mention) somehow, with very few links to this new product, the word 'scholar' had Google showing up as #1.

Yeah, sure they play fair ;)... It's a fair coincidence that ALL of these words show Google as #1?

intranet, spreadsheet, documents, calendar, word processor, email, video, instant messenger, blog, photo sharing, online groups, maps, start page, restaurants, dining, and books

Some? Yes, all? No way. Not spreadsheet, not documents, certainly shouldn't be for e-mail or instant messenger.

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[AchiIIe]

I was about to dismiss your comment, but then I tried it
> Spreadsheet - google #1
> Spreadsheet program - openoffice calc & wikipedia, google sneak peak later
> Spreadsheet software - others
> Spreadsheet application - others, wikipedia, excel, google sneak peak

That google sneak peak is interesting, when it was announced that page was linked everywhere on all blogs. That would make sense to come up as the google-related page on a spreadsheet search. And that's not the case, I would say there's definitely something fishy there.

Tax Liability?

[Christopher_Edwardz]

If google:

• gives itself free advertising for other products in its portfolio
• and derives monetary or other substantial benefit
• and values this service for money

Do they, then, have to mark as "income" the money they create in this manner? I mean, the point would be moot if they "paid themselves" and then marked that as income. (And also created a business expense I guess.)

Do they have to bid, like the others, or do they simply bid[0] = bid.highest() + 1 where bid[0] is google's "bid"? If so, does this violate their own bidding rules? It appears by the article that they do bid fairly.

However, if they do not use "real money" to do so, or record any "created money" as income (as it is value, as it is valuable, since they sell it as a service), isn't this a problem legally?

Re:Tax Liability?

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I know of accounting standards, the income/expense will only be recognized for internal purposes (moving money between departments and determining department profit margin) and would not be an actual income/expense reported to outsiders.

just thought of something

[modeless]

They only do that because they used to before Google Maps was around. I'd be willing to bet that if they added this feature today, Google Maps would be the only option.

And here's the proof: after Google Maps was created, they added a feature to GMail to map addresses that appear in your emails. Google Maps is the only option there.

Re:just thought of something

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered the possibility that the reason Google has a link to Google Maps, only, on the GMail page has more to do with the space required and the extra work of adding more links than Google consciously deciding that all new pages should link only to Google Maps?

Re:just thought of something

[modeless]

My point is exactly that it is *not* a conscious decision to omit other services, any more than it was a conscious decision to include other services in Google Search results. Google didn't benevolently decide to include competitors in Google Search results any more than they maliciously decided to omit them from GMail. It was merely happenstance that decided both and had little to do with Google's "do no evil" attitude.

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[db32]

Shrug could be. Certainly doesn't bother me any, its their search engine to use as they see fit really. I hardly think its unfair for them to do that. They could be lying, or maybe they could just not be giving everyone the full story. I am more inclined to believe they just aren't giving everyone the full story. Hell given that its their secret wizbang search engine...well...they kinda know all the ins and outs of it, it stands to reason the could also design their pages to work their way to the top reliably.

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[Assmasher]

I think it's only unfair if they charge people and claim to do one thing and yet do another... Doesn't affect me personally, but imagine if it was Microsoft we were talking about? ;)

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[db32]

Well unfortunately you are living on the wrong planet. Once upon a time claiming one thing and doing another was fraud...these days its marketing. Again I doubt they are really lying, there is a stupidity in that action that I just don't think they would do. However, making claims that are sketchy and skirt around the issue a bit...oh absolutely, and I bet someone got a nice bonus for coming up with a very unthreatening way to say it.

It's because we're rich!!!

[GWBasic]

It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser. Likewise, we use the very same tools and account interface...

We just pay ourselves more then our competators.

Knickers!

[noz]

"Based on the thoroughness of the statement and the use of the word 'precedent' in the second sentence, it appears that the Google PR team huddled with the legal team to get their point across."

Was the author smoking a cigarette at the time? In his underpants? Was he pissed off with his wife? Had he run out of beer? Who gives a shit.

What is it with this hack analysis of "how" something was produced. Academics got distracted with this idea of process a long time ago; did a good job of it; and some of them moved on. Don't try it yourself at home kids. Try to paraphrase the actual content.

OH NO! NOT YOU TOO, SLASHDOT!

[DanTheLewis]

Don't look now, but this story on AdWords has Google AdWords on it! And the top ad is for Google's ad competitor, but THE SECOND ONE is an advertisement for GOOGLE ADWORDS! And if you click on it, it'll TAKE YOU TO GOOGLE'S ADWORDS PORTAL!

Won't someone please think of the children?! I can't bear to look, but I can't tear my eyes away! Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! For the love of God, Montresor! Noooooooo!

Tax benefits

[SonicSpike]

And yes, I am sure since they can show that ads devoted to promoting Google are in fact 'a loss' thus a benefit for their taxes at the end of the year ;-)

Re:Really? Strange that 'spreadsheet' would give..

[Loplin]

The blog entry says that they use the same same utilities for Adwords as any other customer.
Google search results are NOT part of the Google Adwords or Adsense services.
You can't buy better search results on Google.

This means that the blog is NOT claiming that they do not enhance their own rankings in search results.

Additionally, there is no cost to them to do this.
With Adwords, they have to pay the advertising site a set amount(half of what they bid, the other half looping back to them). This costs them in
A) money payed to the website displaying their advertisement
B) money not gained by users that would have clicked other advertisements

With search results, which the parent is talking about, no one is bidding on the top search spot. No one is being cheated, because Google makes no promises about the rankings in its search results, and no one is paying them for services that they are auto-trumping. Google is not a public service, and, is not a monopoly (yet?). Putting their services at the top of search results is both smart and in their best interests.

Further, Google is "The search company". Their forte is providing the best search results as they can. I imagine that they believe that their services are better than those of their competitors, which extends to, they probobly believe that they are improving their search results by making sure that their better services (in their opinion) are given priority, just as I am sure they manually remove spam from results in order to improve search results on more popular keywords.

Google Clueless Again

[RonBurk]

Boy, they really still don't get it. I couldn't believe they were trying to protray that their employees using the Google system are competing on an equal playing field with customers using the Google system. Reminds me of when Microsoft publicly claimed that there were no undocumented API functions, and their app programmers were competing on a level field with all other Windows app programmers. Claimed that right up until Andrew Schulman raised his hand and said "Umm, here's some undocumented system functions that Word is using."

Sad to see Google as willing to be slimy as Microsoft. They have every right to let their engineers do AdSense, AdWords, and whatever else for fun and profit. But please don't treat us like idiots and tell us that we're competing with them on a level playing field. Applying a Quality Score to everybody ain't a level playing field when some folks sit in an office next to the guy who knows how the secret Quality Score is calculated. Sheesh.

ORLY?

[alexgieg]

It's important to note, however, that our ads are created and managed under the exact same guidelines, principles, practices and algorithms as the ads of any other advertiser.

So, if a Google employee makes the mistake of clicking on a Google ad from the same shared IP that was used to put the ad on the air, will Google ban itself from the AdSense service?

Re:Ubuntu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I'm a Cherokee and have been as far back as I can trace my ancestry. So no, I'm not one of those savage Europeans or one of those Savage niggers. Instead I'm an enlightened Cherokee. Thanks for playing, better luck next time.