Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Google Responds to AdWords Accusations

Posted by Zonk on from the sorry-should-have-thought-of-that dept.

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."

5 of 149 comments (clear)

  1. Nice by Anonymous+Crowhead · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Nice by E++99 · · Score: 4, Insightful
      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.
  2. Think about it... by TheSHAD0W · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  3. Common Sense by X43B · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  4. MOD PARENT UP by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.