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Aussies Sue Over Misleading Google Ads
eldavojohn writes "Google is the target of another lawsuit — this time over whether or not they are responsible for the content that advertisers put up on their site. The case involves an instance where Google displayed ads for two automotive dealerships in Australia, yet the links led users to the site of a commercial rival. The company that placed the ads in 2005 avoided a lawsuit by settling with Australian regulators, who are now going after Google for not policing the ads. If this suit holds up it will set a precedent for very heavy ad monitoring responsibility on the part of all search engines, not just Google."
RTFS. The company placing the ads has already settled. This is just a case of going after the deep pockets.
I believe it's making a false representation, both to the reader and to the newspaper, magazine or web hosting company.
If it's an attempt to obtain money by a false and fraudulent representation, though, then things get stickier: that's a criminal offence in Canada, and I suspect in Australia too.
American Heritage Dictionary: fraud (frôd) n.
1. A deception deliberately practiced in order to secure unfair or unlawful gain.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
They don't cause the products and services you list are illegal. Cars are not illegal (yet).
Google doesn't advertise cocaine either.
google was making TONS of money selling ads that appeared whenever anyone typed in Louis Vuitton. There are hundreds of pirate manufacturers selling fake Louis Vuitton purses, and they were making a mint on Google.
Louis Vuitton sued Google, and Google lost. Badly.
This case is a rehash of that concept, except they have also gone a step further and claimed that Google's entire business model of displaying several paid results before the organic search results is misleading too- since they use the exact same font/size/format.. Do you think your parents or a newbie online knows that the tiny "ads by google" waaaaay over on the right hand side of the screen means that any link to the left of it for 5 inches is a paid ad?
No. They dont. People (not slashdot crowd) think that the first results are the "best" results. They have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA those are ads. None. The BBC did a study last year that showed 12 percent or less of a random sampling of web surfers could point out where the advertisements where on a typical search result page.
That folks, is why this suit is really scaring Google. Hell- even a national news story that mentioned in black and white "Hey guys, you see all this stuff on the right hand side of the screen, and on the top? Those are all paid advertisements, even though they dont look like it" could kill the whole scam.
Google has made a business model out of buying the commercial television time right after the evening's national news show, and hiring a look-alike model with a copycat set to run a second newscast, except pitching paid advertisements. Sure, a very few people might realize that it isn't the real news, but enough people will be fooled that they'll make shitloads of money.
Wait a minute. When did they start giving copyrights for individual words? That's gonna make writing ANYTHING kinda tricky. I get a picture in my head of a lawyers version of the "Knights of Nee". Can I get the copyright for "the"?.
Who is John Galt?
I would love it if articles would link to the sites of the people involved.
/ 792088/fromItemId/142
See http://www.accc.gov.au/content/index.phtml/itemId
They are mainly seeking injuctions, declarations, and order. The only monetary request is for costs. You can argue that costs can be inflated, but this is still not a "fine them $x million" lawsuit that you see elsewhere in the world. The ACCC is looking for a change in behaviour from Google and, if proven right, money to cover the ACCC's expenses.
After reading that URL, I think you'll agree that the ACCC is in the wrong. But can we dispense with the "they're after the money" posts, please? The ACCC is requesting something similar to a newspaper retraction, not a fine. If someone finds information that they're seeking a fine, please post it.
"If I purchase an ad in a newspaper would the newspaper be liable if I used a competitors name?"
Actually, yes. A publisher/editor is liable for all the content that appears in the newspaper. (I'm assuming of course, that you're using the competitor's name in a way that is injurious to reputation.)
"Does the newspaper have to personaly verify every address and phone number to ensure I am using only my information?"
Most good news papers have their fact checkers doing EXACTLY that. Again, a publisher/editor is liable for all the content that appears in the newspaper.
"What if I visit a printing company and have scam flyers printed up. Is it up to the printing company to verify?"
No, because unlike the newspaper, the printing company does not -distribute- the flyers. You could print scam stuff till you're blue in the face, you are just not allowed to distribute it.
-- Brian Boyko
-- Former Associate Editor, Daily Texan Newspaper, Austin, TX.
-- M.A. Journalism, University of Texas.
I used to work for NetQoS. I no longer do, but want to keep the excellent karma attached to this account.
Yeah maybe your corrupt-arse government. The ACCC is not a revenue-generating arm.
Of your two options, I'd have to go with stupid. But the benefit is very clear. It is the Australian consumers that benefit. That laws are adhered to. The ACCC receive money from the Australian Government (read tax payer money) to make sure that companies stick to the rules. This way, large corporations don't get away with treating the consumers (or anybody/anything else) like crap by having pockets deep enough that they can 'win' by keeping the case in court for as long as it takes to bankrupt anyone bringing legal action. This tactic will not work with the ACCC.
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The piece of law that they are sueing under is a thing called the Trade Practices Act 1974. Section 52 is a very broad section of that act that prohibits Misleading and Deceptive conduct.
If you read the press release on the ACCC website , they are also sueing the Trading Post, which traditionally was a paper you could buy advertising items for sale. As a guess, they are looking to clean up the online advertising business to discourage behaviour that would lead to people being mislead into buying from the wrong company.
Just a bit of background for the American readers. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is part of the Australian Federal Government. They normally deal with cases of large scale misbehaviour by companies (the smaller disputes between an individual and a company normally fall to the state fair trading body). Their resposibility is to ensure that the companies are providing their products to the customers in a reasonable way. Areas they look at include, price collusion, third line forcing, misleading and deceptive advertising (includes descriptions, prices and availability), anti-competitive behaviour, product saftety, etc.
Their normal preference is to obtain a court enforceable undertaking from the company in question, that will often include, changes in behaviour, corrective advertising and recompense to the customers affected. A good example of this is the case against Repco . In that case the results was that Repco agreed to a court enforcable undertaking to:
Note there was no financial benefit from this to the ACCC, the only recpompense went to the customers affected.
In some cases, the ACCC will take an organisation all the way through the system, and ask that the result be a fine, like in the case of Safeway, where they sucessfully fined the company $8.9 Million for price fixing, and one of the staff received a fine of $50,000. From memory all of the fines are per offence, and have provisions against the employees/officers of a company to help discourage bad behaviour. As you can see to take that kind of action takes a long time (in the Safeway case, it was 10 years because it went all the way through the court system).