Google Faces EU Probe Over Doped Search Results

Barence writes "The EU has launched an investigation into whether Google is deliberately doctoring its search results to favour its own services. The search giant stands accused of artificially lowering the search ranking of competing price-comparison sites in organic and paid-for search results, in favour of Google Shopping. 'There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial, and the reality that they are increasingly neither,' said Shivaun Raff, CEO of British price comparison site Foundem, which lodged the complaint with the EU. Google has denied any foul play. 'Those sites have complained and even sued us over the years, but in all cases there were compelling reasons why their sites were ranked poorly by our algorithms,' it claims."

Comments

I shop online all the time

[Anonymous Coward]

I shop online all of the time. I've never heard of this "foundem". Furthermore, the last two paragraphs are pretty telling:

Addressing Foundem's allegations specifically, Google said: "We built Google for users, not websites, and the nature of ranking is that some websites will be unhappy with where they rank. Those sites have complained and even sued us over the years, but in all cases there were compelling reasons why their sites were ranked poorly by our algorithms.

"For example, Foundem, one of the sites that has complained publicly and to the European Commission, duplicates 79% of its website content from other sites, and we have consistently informed webmasters that our algorithms disadvantage duplicate sites."

You're not ranked high because you're not relevant to the users' interest. 'Nuff said.

Re:I shop online all the time

[Just Some Guy]

And who gets to decide that, the competition or a neutral party?

A few billion neutral third parties have said that they like Google's appraisal just fine. If their results weren't so in line with what people want and expect, users would have gone with a different search engine.

Re:I shop online all the time

[Dishevel]

I use Google because I like their results. If you do not like their results do not use them. They are a company who makes profit by making shit simple for the user. The do not exist to make the web fair. Just usable. They do a damn good job of that. Governments have no right to even look into this. The search results are Googles OPINION!

As Mike Muir once sang while with Infectious Grooves ..... "I hate stupid people!"

Hope Google wins, for the sake of useful results.

[makomk]

I really hope Google wins this one. Google search results are spammed with enough useless "price comparison" and "vertical search" sites as it is, their results really don't need any more - especially not forced upon them by Google. It's reached the point where it's very difficult to find actual reviews for certain products or sites selling them via Googling already, because the "vertical search" sites don't care about actually providing good information. (If you read Google's response, the reason the company complaining got automatically downranked is because nearly all their content was duplicated - like many such sites, they offered absolutely nothing useful and were just sponging off their ability to draw people in by getting as high in the Google results as possible.)

Yawn

[girlintraining]

"There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial...

Impartiality Checklist
[ ] Do they make money doing it?
[ ] Do they support a political candidate, viewpoint, or party?
[ ] Is what they're doing taxable?
[ ] Do they claim to know the truth, as opposed to still searching for it?

Note: If you checked any of the boxes, you can be certain they are not impartial.

Re:Was bound to happen

[ThePromenader]

I find your phrase 'google something on Bing' highly amusing - and very revealing of the actual market situation ; )

Re:Isn't this...

[Chrisq]

I'm pretty sure Google is on the line though.

Yes, I also have a feeling they have a clear conscience. As to the reason their own services are ranked high? Of all, surely Google knows how to optimize their pages for Googles page ranking algorithms!

If they really wanted to "do no evil" they would have a clean room team implement the SEO for their own services using only publicly published information. After all using some secret way to get to the top of the list has the same affect as building in a bias for your site.

As always, follow the money...

[dclozier]

Ciao was bought by Microsoft in 2008 for nearly $500m (£324m) and is now called Ciao Bing, after Microsoft’s search engine. Foundem is a member of ICOMP, an internet pressure group which receives funding from Microsoft.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7301299/Google-under-investigation-for-alleged-breach-of-EU-competition-rules.html

This is just more of the same from Microsoft when trying to compete.

Re:Hope Google wins, for the sake of useful result

[bradley13]

Agreed - these price-comparison sites are almost universally leeches. They provide no added content, the contents are often out-of-date, and you can get the same functionality by just clicking on individual links in Google. I wish they would all go away. That said, I have never seen Google shopping come up in the results of a search for a product. I am always skipping over spammed results from other price comparison sites - not to mention eBay (I hate eBay). If Google is cheating, they surely are doing a lousy job of it :-)

According to one article, Foundem is a case study in SEO fail. Perhaps it's easier to sue than to fix your business concept.