Texas Opens Inquiry Into Google Search Rankings

Hugh Pickens writes "The AP reports that Texas' attorney general, Greg Abbott, has opened an anti-trust investigation against Google spurred by complaints that the company has abused its power as the Internet's dominant search engine. The review appears to be focused on whether Google is manipulating its search results to stifle competition. European regulators already have been investigating complaints alleging that Google has been favoring its own services in its results instead of rival websites and several lawsuits have also been filed in the US that have alleged Google's search formula is biased. However Google believes Abbott is the first state attorney general to open an antitrust review into the issue."

Comments

When you can't compete, sue...

[Cheech Wizard]

When you can't compete in a market, sue... That's the ticket!

Re:When you can't compete, sue...

[maxume]

This is a politician looking for attention, not a competitor trying not to compete.

Re:When you can't compete, sue...

[interkin3tic]

More like "When you can't fix the real problems plaguing your shitty state, distract attention by opening up a pointless investigation on a very well known, big company."

I'd be 100% in favor of Google opening up their own investigation of Texas. Start with the Texas revolution. That was questionable.

Re:When you can't compete, sue...

[tomhath]

Google has hinted pretty strongly that Microsoft is behind these lawsuits . That wouldn't surprise me. My guess is that the real goal here is to force Google to make their ranking algorithm public.

Re:When you can't compete, sue...

[maxume]

You are even promoting it today.

Re:When you can't compete, sue...

[Bigjeff5]

It's like every site owner has to sit in front of their PC all day long building links to compete

The good websites don't have this problem, they get links because people like them, and link to them. If you have to spend all day building links, maybe you should look at your website's content/service first. That could be where the problem lies.

More on this...

[alphatel]

Search Neutrality under attack

As originally posted on Search Engine Land, These allegations are merely exploratory and it is difficult to determine exactly where the GA's office is headed in this investigation, or how Texas could claim jurisdiction. All the lawsuits in question are being raised by non-Texas corporations and against a California-based company.

Yesterday, Google responded to the investigation, which has not been made public yet by the General Attorney's office. In it's response, Google states that they "listen carefully to people's concerns" and " we strongly believe our business practices reflect our commitment to build great products for the benefit of users everywhere". To some extent this sounds like the usual play from Google, invoking it's "do no evil" mantra.

Does Google manipulate results to thwart competitors and advance its own businesses? Some competitors to Google are concerned that the company lowers search results listings for certain firms and/or charging higher fees ads they place vs those of Google's partners.

Google has never revealed its search or ranking methodology for sites in detail, though it has published some papers on optimization and best practices.

Google's reply on a Friday night after business hours on the biggest 3-day summer weekend of the year is sure to draw little attention.

Re:More on this...

[Jedi Alec]

If Google is listing its own products above those of their competitors, they're doing a pretty shitty job. Doing a google search for "search engine" gets me a wiki, an aggregator site, Altavista, Bing and then Google ;-)

The first news result is about Google facing some sort of Texas AG inquiry though...

Uh...it's free...

[Das Auge]

Texas, why am I not surprised?

People are going to draw parallels between Google and Microsoft or Intel. However, I need to point out that unlike the later two, Google's services are free to the end user. Not only that, but it's also monumentally easier to stop using Google than say, Microsoft.

I don't know if Google is doing what they're accused of, but so what? It's free, I'm not locked in, and they never said that they were impartial (so no false advertisement).

Re:Uh...it's free...

[blackraven14250]

Antitrust violations tend to be abuse of a monopoly position to prevent competitors from entering or gaining traction in a market.

Considering that Google isn't really even a monopoly, this doesn't have merit as an actual case.

Re:Uh...it's free...

[hedwards]

Um, why on Earth was this modded informative, because it's wrong. You don't have to be a monopoly to run afoul of antitrust regulations. Being the largest player and using that dominant position to harm other competitors is sufficient. There is no rule that you have to a be a monopoly, I'm not sure where you got that idea from, but it's not correct.

As an easy to explain example, the deal that saw Google acquire Double click almost certainly ran afoul of the Clayton Antitrust Act in that it substantially reduced the market competition in the on line advertising space. That's just an example, but it pretty clearly demonstrates that being a monopoly isn't necessary for running afoul of antitrust regulations.

Indeed

[maxwell demon]

I also noticed this: Always when I enter search terms in Google, I always get Google search results. Not a single time did I get results from Bing or Altavista. :-)

Re:Indeed

[noidentity]

I know, they're so biased, even though they have that empty "do no evil" mantra. If they really wanted to be fair, they'd submit your search request to a randomly selected search engine out of all those available. I don't see how this would be a problem, and it would end their abusive monopoly position. But of course they won't do that, not unless we throw the book at 'em.

There's no solution

[mangu]

It's a very simple, easy to obfuscate (cover up) search results manipulation that could quite easily make a multi-hundred millions dollar difference for the company

Two alternatives: you either let them do it or you force them to publish their ranking algorithms.

If page rank were public, there would be no search engines worth using. The whole internet is bad enough with spam as it is.

Better let Google do their stuff, it's not as if they were keeping others from posting their own search results. I started using Google when they started giving me better results than Altavista, which was the search "monopoly" back then.

Re:There's no solution

[MBC1977]

It may become moot anyway; Google's exclusive license to the Pagerank algorithm expires in 2011. And while I suspect they will throw a chunk of money at Stanford to re-license the technology,
I could honestly see several potential alternatives:

(1) Microsoft and / or Yahoo paying Stanford NOT to grant Google a new, exclusive license.

(2) Stanford (in the interest of advancing technology) NOT granting Google a new, exclusive license.

or (3) any number of various governments (to include the U.S. government) wringing some sort of concessions (let your imagination wonder about this one...)

Texas?

[Guppy06]

What's the problem? Google keeps on raking pages from Wikipedia higher than Conservapedia? I agree, that must be an anti-competitive conspiracy!

Biased? Who?

[owlstead]

I think we should start an inquiry about bias with Texas attorneys, not Google. It seems that they are too embedded in the old boys network to have anything to do with justice.

Look at the companies that file complaints: three companies that anyone would rather filter out than in. Seems to me that these aren't the companies that warrant the investigation. So I've got a very strong feeling this other company is behind it.

For me, this is just a big ploy to get to the page-rank algorithm. It would not be hard to leak it when the investigation starts for real.

Google sez this is the first?

[elmarkitse]

"However Google believes Abbott is the first state attorney general to open an antitrust review into the issue." Did they used Google search to determine this?

Re:unexpected?

[hedwards]

Um, no, if the allegations are true, that would be a blatant violation of antitrust regulation. You're not allowed to use your dominant position in such a way. It's harmful to competition and definitely does cause problems for the market.

Never heard about the complaining sites.

[lalena]

From the article:

Harrison said that Abbott has asked Google for information about several companies, including: Foundem, an online shopping comparison site in Britain; SourceTool, which runs an e-commerce site catering to businesses; and MyTriggers, another shopping comparison site

Never heard of any of these sites. I Google shopping comparison, and I get the well known comparison sites I expect to see at the top. I do not get MyTriggers.

So I go to the MyTriggers site itself to check it out. At first, I didn't think they even had merchant site reviews. Then I realized they do, but may of the sites have not been reviewed yet. Only 2 reviews for Target? 12 for Amazon?

Whois search reveals the site was registered in 2005. Not bad, but if they have been around for 5 years I should have heard about them by now. Also, their domain registration reveals that they renew their domain every year. Google gives better ranking to sites that pay for many years at once, since that shows they owners have faith if their company. Basic SEO fail.

Quick investigation reveals that the company also owns ShopBig - one of those penny auction sites. I hate these sites and the way they operate. The MyTriggers site is hardcoded to show a big ad link to ShopBig on every page. Aren't they in fact doing the same thing they accuse Google of. They don't give other penny auction sites a chance to advertise there or appear on their search result rankings.

Let's pick on another site. TFA says that SourceTool is a e-commerce site catering to business, but the title on the home page says "SourceTool - A B2B Search Engine". If I Google B2B Search Engine, they are number 2 in the results. If I Google e-commerce for business they do not appear. The word commerce doesn't appear on their home page. So what are they? SEO Fail.

In the end, the site is a search engine for companies that sell to businesses. Since they have a medical category, and the company I work for is #1 in several categories for medical devices, I decide to see if they are listed. After waiting a full minute for the medical page to load, they are not. They don't even have the proper category for my company. Just to be sure I click on company profiles A-Z to see if I can find my company. It shows all companies starting with the #1. and a button for next page. No simple button to show companies that start with letter X. Do I have to click Next 50 times? They have a search box on this screen, but if I use it I get a 404 error.

I wasn't going to review Foundem at first since they are based in the UK and I don't live there. Google should be smart enough to lower their site on my search simply because that site applies less to me. Still I look anyway. They use the less popular .co.uk domain suffix - Google doesn't like this as much. Also, this time there really aren't any merchant rankings. They do have a Google bash on their home page with a link to SearchNeutrality.org - a site they also own.

I think the real complaint from these companies is the fact that shopping.Google.com results are now always shown on the search results page if Google thinks you are searching for a product - Something Bing did first. This pretty much destroys the business model for many companies. If Google thinks I am trying to purchase something, should they send me to a site that can't sell me the product? Should they send me to another site where I have to do 4 more clicks to get to a list of merchants and prices for the product I am looking for. If Google guesses wrong, should they show me a list of shopping sites on the first page when I really want a product review? I think the way Google handles shopping results is the best way for me, and they are in the business of satisfying my needs. This is still search.

Re:Never heard about the complaining sites.

[Arthur Grumbine]

Gentlemen, if I may direct your attention here - you'll notice a rare individual of the species criticus cogitans, as he strives to bring rationality to the discussion. Notice the sincere effort to evaluate the content of "The Fucking Article" (as the natives call it), even going so far as to actually investigate the validity of the claims reported in TFA. Notice, also, how he was not able to write his post quickly enough to have it anywhere near the top of the page (the most desired location for this, and many other, internet tribes), and thus has been muscled out of the pecking (and modding) order by those members of his tribe who were able to more quickly spit out a generic response representing their previously held ideologies, as applied to this topic (monopolies/government-regulation/competitiveness).
 
Truly, gentlemen, we are observing evolution in action, as this individual will receive less recognition for their efforts than their fellows, precisely because of his desire to exercise his critical thinking abilities. Over time we will be able to observe as lalena (1221394) becomes more and more frustrated with being unable to communicate his ideas to his tribe and be rewarded (this community uses a source of nourishment called "mod points"), until he either dies (see the number of inactive/dead 5-digit or less UID for evidence of this), or must adapt his posting style to cater to the whims of masses, just in the hopes of striking a chord with moderator who holds to a similar ideology. I, myself, was gifted by the tribal leaders with a handful of these mod points, to dole out as I see fit. Unfortunately, I appear to have used them all up on the previous article on Craigslist and prostitution.

tl;dr: Mod Parent Up!!

Google "search"

[whoop]

I just Googled, "search" and Google was at number seven. Bing was at the top. Using "search engine" and Google isn't even on the first three pages (I got bored after that). So clearly, Google isn't exercising it's monopoly powers very well.

P.S. I would Google for "Google" but I didn't want to break the Internets.