Is Google Playing Fair With Groupon, et al?

An anonymous reader writes with the claim (illustrated with what seems like damning screen-shot evidence) that "Google is using Gmail's priority inbox to give special treatment to its own daily deal emails over all the rest."

Comments

wow

[Osgeld]

who would have thought a for profit company would ever try to push its products and services before the competition?

Re:wow

[AlexBirch]

or slashdot / blog presenting bad evidence in order to get more views?
Groupon is still marked as important for my gmail account.

Re:wow

[man_of_mr_e]

You know, it seems like Slashdot has become the place to go to enrage the geeks. Oh no! Google slaughters puppies and enslaves kittens. Cry "Havoc!" and let slip the Nerds of war!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

who would have thought a for profit company would ever try to push its products and services before the competition?

Not one that claims to be different with self-serving, nebulous and in the final reckoning utterly meaningless marketing pap like "Don't do evil" as they try to sell themselves as being "better" than those other "evil" corporations.

But gee, who's surprised an overgrown ad agency is really good at selling itself to its fanbois.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this whole thing doesn't make sense coz AFAIK Priority Inbox acts based on the emails you read, delete or mark as important. So if you are not touching your groupon emails or delete them when they come, they will look like non-priority emails to your gmail inbox.

Re:wow

[whiteboy86]

If a company ebuses its market dominance to gain grounds in other markets then we have a really bad monopoly situation, but if Microsoft is any example then the competition will be long gone and forgotten before anything serious happens to the company.

Re:wow

[Osgeld]

Im sorry but what is ebuses

Re:wow

[bonch]

Slashdot in 2001: "Microsoft is unfairly leveraging its Windows monopoly to push its other products! Break this company up!"
Slashdot in 2011: "Hey, come on, now, Google is just a for-profit company trying to sell its products like everyone else."

Re:wow

[Osgeld]

luckily I was not browsing slashdot in 2001

Excellent timing

[betterunixthanunix]

...just in time for an antitrust investigation. Who at Google thought this was a good idea, anyway?

Re:Excellent timing

[Osgeld]

I dont see how, google is not the only email web client solution on the net and no one is forced to use it (and honestly I dont see the appeal, its clunky IMO)

Re:Excellent timing

[exomondo]

...just in time for an antitrust investigation.

On what grounds? I'm not seeing anything here that would warrant such a thing.

Re:Excellent timing

[Meshach]

I dont see how, google is not the only email web client solution on the net and no one is forced to use it (and honestly I dont see the appeal, its clunky IMO)

No one was forced to use Microsoft but their product was so common that the judge determined that them encouraging customers to use another one of their products was illegal. I guess the call here is determining if Google is a monopoly on the search business.

Re:Excellent timing

[swillden]

...just in time for an antitrust investigation. Who at Google thought this was a good idea, anyway?

Most likely, no one, because mostly likely no one thought of it at all.

My bet is that this the result of a generic rule that boosts the importance of e-mails from Google, you know so that you're sure to see announcements of new gmail features, or Google account-related messages, etc., but no one thought to make an exception for Offers.

Given that Offers and gmail come from different groups within Google, and I'd expect that no one on the Offers team knows much about how priority inbox is implemented and no one on the gmail team was thinking much about Offers other than to note there was a launch party, I can see exactly how this would happen. Or maybe it is intentional... but I doubt it.

What will happen next is that the Priority Inbox rules will be modified to avoid giving any undue precedence to Google Offers, and lots of slashdotters will believe that Google was being Evil and only stopped when caught, regardless of the facts of the situation.

(Disclaimer: I'm a software engineer at Google, but I don't work on Offers or gmail.)

Re:Excellent timing

[errandum]

Then any company that promotes it's products from within another product they own should hide. How dare skype or Apple push their products through their products!!!

They give their service for free, so you should just accept it as it is. It's a small thing when gmail is still so much better than everyone else...

PS: And after reading the article I honestly believe the case is easier than that. Google tracks you by more than your account, so I do think he "noticed" both accounts belonged to the same person and defaulted the filters to what it already knew about him.

Re:Excellent timing

[toastar]

and honestly I dont see the appeal, its clunky IMO

Android integration

Re:Excellent timing

[betterunixthanunix]

You don't have to see how, you just have to pay attention. Google has confirmed that they are facing an antitrust inquiry from the FTC, right now, and I doubt that this sort of behavior is going to look very good.

Re:Excellent timing

[betterunixthanunix]

Google is already facing an inquiry from the FTC. All you need to do is pay attention to the news:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/ftc-launching-antitrust-probe-over-google-search-ad-businesses.ars

This sort of thing is not going to look very good to the FTC.

Re:Excellent timing

[edumacator]

In this instance, the call would be whether or not Google is a monopoly for the email market. They aren't even in first place, so it would be hard for us to call them a monopoly wouldn't it?

Re:Excellent timing

[exomondo]

Google is already facing an inquiry from the FTC. All you need to do is pay attention to the news: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/06/ftc-launching-antitrust-probe-over-google-search-ad-businesses.ars This sort of thing is not going to look very good to the FTC.

How so? If you send an email with the 'high importance' flag it ends up in your priority inbox the same way as emails from google.

Re:Excellent timing

[DJRumpy]

I agree. I use a Mac and Apple already does something similar with a rule to highlight messages from Apple (they get a different background color so they stand out). I don't really see the harm in this and it's easily disabled (an a Mac anyway..Not sure about Google).

Anyone can send an offer with High Priority so I don't see how this is 'unfair' as far as that goes.

Re:Excellent timing

[hedwards]

That probe is fully legitimate, probing this as an antitrust violation would be absurdly silly.

They haven't the market share necessary for this to be an antitrust violation by themselves nor is there any reason to suspect collusion as it's all being done internally. It might suck for Groupon and the others, but this is hardly going to have much of an impact on them anyways, at least not anymore than getting caught up in overly zealous spam filters.

Re:Excellent timing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes the fact that a company continues to offer great service and products in a market and managed to stay a leader instead of stagnate is a reason to punish them...Telecoms on the other hand with their government granted monopolies should continue to go unchecked now that there are only 4 of them in the wireless sector and less than 10 major ones in the wired sector. Google is only getting an antitrust investigation because pockets of politicians were lined by media companies and telecom industries, same as Netflix is targeted yet the government has done nothing to the media companies that force waiting periods on some companies and not others. Seriously if this isn't an example of how corrupt our government has become I don't know what will start alarm bells. I'm a freaking Green Party member in my state because they are the ones advocating smaller government for crying out loud.

Re:Excellent timing

[The Dawn Of Time]

The Slashdot definition of monopoly seems to be "making more money than I think they should have."

Re:Excellent timing

[SuperMog2002]

The antitrust inquiry is for their search product, where they have an overwhelming percent of the market (to the point where Googling is a common verb, even among non-techies). Priority Inbox is a feature of their largely unrelated email product. While Gmail has a nice chunk of the market, it's hardly overwhelming. Hotmail and Yahoo both have nice chunks of market share as well.

Re:Excellent timing

[zill]

Which is completely optional.

Unlike in United States v. Microsoft, where IE was just a double click away, to setup Gmail on Android you must provide your login info. If you tap cancel during the setup, you will end up in the Android home screen. Then you're free to install any mail client of your choice.

Re:Excellent timing

[aztracker1]

However, you did sign up for a service from a company using the same company account to do it... If yougot email notifications for edits to shared google docs, tied to your email account, would you not expect this? Google "knows" you asked for it, the same can't be said of the other services. Also, this seems to be tied to the "high" importance header in the emails, not anything directly with gmail.

Re:Excellent timing

[Anonymous Coward]

No one was forced to use Microsoft but their product was so common that the judge determined that them encouraging customers to use another one of their products was illegal

Fail, fail, FAIL.
Are you a shill, an apologist, have a short memory or were too young to remember?

Microsoft's antitrust problem came from them making "deals" with OEMs (companies like Dell that sell PCs to business and in stores) that basically said "if you put Netscape on the computer instead of Internet Explorer then we'll make you pay full price per Windows copy instead of OEM price (ie. +$100 more expensive)", they also had the wonderful "if you offer anything other than Windows, even if Windows is the main thing you sell, then we'll cut you off and not sell you any Windows copies at all". Then the less overt "let's just delete these APIs that Netscape uses so it won't run any more" and the "Let's create custom APIs in Windows just for IE that only IE uses and aren't documented in order to get a performance edge". Microsoft was a giant douche in the late 90s, they're better now but that these games still happen on smaller scale.

What Google is doing here (if true) is clearly unethical but not antitrust since they aren't blocking, filtering or hiding-by-default the competition and you can alter the settings to remove the bias.

Re:Excellent timing

[EdIII]

The truthful and accurate definition of a monopoly is one in which the consumer choice for a product or service resides with a single company.

Obviously Google is not just an email services provider and I am not finding it unreasonable that Google would advertise and sell advertising space to those that receive free email service.

I deal with a large amount of customers in various databases and I can say that I don't see GMail having such a huge percentage of the market share (based on domains in the email with a group by query).

Hardly a monopoly, and whoever said life is fair, much less business? If you believe that a free market is fair, I have a bridge to sell you.

This is a non-story. In fact, I would be very surprised if Google did not push any service it offers above all other competing services through any service that it provides. That isn't evil either.

Those people made a "pact with the Devil" so to speak when they got their GMail account to begin with. This may sound snobbish, but if you don't have your own domain pointed towards an email server through your company, or a private upsell through something like GoDaddy, don't try representing yourself as a professional.

The sheeple wan't free, but actually want it with no strings attached? Just how was Google supposed to make money by giving away free email accounts again?

LOL. Groupon is bitching? They just had a ridiculous IPO and could just make a deal with Google to get their email through with priority service and be done with it. Whining about it is actually quite funny to tell the truth.

Re:Excellent timing

[EdIII]

Given that Offers and gmail come from different groups within Google, and I'd expect that no one on the Offers team knows much about how priority inbox is implemented and no one on the gmail team was thinking much about Offers other than to note there was a launch party, I can see exactly how this would happen. Or maybe it is intentional... but I doubt it.

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes it is very much as you suspect. You work for Google? You have to know that Google is like a creature with a hundred arms and that on any one day, one arm might meet the next one for the very first time.

This is absolutely confirmed with YouTube and those responsible for Google authentication. Those teams do NOT communicate very well and remind me of how NASA crashed a billion dollars into Mars.

I have been told point blank by people working on the YouTube API that they don't fully understand, have full access, or good documentation for the authentication portion of that absolutely massive API you guys have over there. I authenticate through Google, then make my request through YouTube. If I want a good reliable answer I need to limit my questions to YouTube.

P.S - This is not really a rant. Those guys on the YouTube API are really nice guys. You would be surprised by how much crap they have to put up with from frustrated programmers. Due, in part, to the level of cooperation between all of your departments at Google. I'm sure that is not exactly news to you is it?

Re:Excellent timing

[MightyMartian]

The difference is that Microsoft's monopoly could create an effective barrier to entry for potential competitors. The web does not permit the creation of that sort of a barrier. Google can't force anyone to use its offerings, so it's hard to see how it could be considered to be in the same camp. I'm quite free to use Bing or Yahoo if I want, with no potential for Google to disadvantage me in any way.

Re:Excellent timing

[LordKronos]

Or maybe it is intentional... but I doubt it.

Actually, I suspect it was indeed intentional, but at the same time, completely understandable. Think about it. When you start getting this emails from groupon and other discount websites, what does google know about it? They know is the emails just suddenly started appearing in your inbox, and they know that you never bothered to click on the welcome email. That's not very convincing that you are actually interested in the emails.

Now, what does google know about your subscription to google offers? Well, they know it was you who intentionally signed up, because they know you went out of your way and did it WHILE LOGGED INTO YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT. Whether or not you clicked on any emails in your gmail account is a complete red herring, because they already had all the information necessary to authenticate the legitimacy of those emails even before the first welcome email arrived in your inbox.

Re:Excellent timing

[Americium]

But that was because there was no viable alternative desktop, there are plenty of viable search alternatives, and they are ALL free!

Re:Excellent timing

[mjwx]

The Slashdot definition of monopoly seems to be "making more money than I think they should have."

The thing is, Google is a monopoly by the measurements of most regulatory agencies (controlling a sufficient percentage of the market).

The thing that the alarmists get wrong is that unlike certain other IT monopolies, Google is a natural monopoly, maintained by natural means (I.E. better products, not vendor lock in). Monopolies are not intrinsically bad, they can occur simply because the competition is not good enough. This is the case with search, Google has blocked no one from entering the search market.

Re:Excellent timing

[williamhb]

My bet is that this the result of a generic rule that boosts the importance of e-mails from Google, you know so that you're sure to see announcements of new gmail features, or Google account-related messages, etc., but no one thought to make an exception for Offers.

Excuse me for saying, but that does sounds like what the original article was claiming is a problem, and a parallel of the complaint in the anti-trust probes: I believe the concern is that Google's algorithms by default deem all content, email, and services from Google as "important" but do not offer the same by-default automatic promotion to their competitors. The article author's claim is that this advantages Google's products over its products over its competitors'.

Given that Offers and gmail come from different groups within Google, and I'd expect that no one on the Offers team knows much about how priority inbox is implemented and no one on the gmail team was thinking much about Offers other than to note there was a launch party, I can see exactly how this would happen. Or maybe it is intentional... but I doubt it.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out -- as the Web more and more becomes people's desktop I think we'll see more of these kind of complaints. With Microsoft, it was possible to see arguments of "we just thought it'd be really useful to include a free media player and a web browser", but nonetheless the big stick was swung against them for bundling. Is there an equivalent of bundling in the Web world? Will litigiousness about this go to the extent that because Google's search home page links directly to GMail but not other email services (and the browser is the new desktop) that's deemed equivalent to every MS Windows desktop install having an Internet Explorer icon but no Opera icon by default? After all, you could install Opera onto the Windows desktop but you can't install Yahoo mail onto the Google search homepage (though you can into iGoogle).

Caveat: I'm mostly just an interested bystander (academic), though I do sometimes feel mildly uncomfortable from a libertarian perspective that theoretically it would now be very hard for someone to avoid giving Google data about themselves -- if they don't get it via search or email, they'll get it via Google Analytics installed on the other sites you visit. I think Google is now in a much more entrenched monopoly position than Microsoft was -- MS at its monopolistic height never had your data, they just constrained the format you had it in; Google does have your data and for much of it there is no "delete". That's quite a well-fortified position. You cannot simply take your eighteen-months-of-search-and-browsing-history that Google mine to a different provider.

Re:Excellent timing

[mutewinter]

Yet it is closely interlinked because Google Offers is just the kind of thing that Google is using the search engine to drive traffic to, traffic that would otherwise go to competitors. This is just demonstrating that no one at Google is taking the anti competitive business practice stuff seriously.

Re:Excellent timing

[robably]

The Slashdot definition of monopoly seems to be "making more money than I think they should have."

Every time someone on Slashdot complains about a group mentality on Slashdot they invalidate their own argument.

Re:Excellent timing

[swillden]

Caveat: I'm mostly just an interested bystander (academic), though I do sometimes feel mildly uncomfortable from a libertarian perspective that theoretically it would now be very hard for someone to avoid giving Google data about themselves -- if they don't get it via search or email, they'll get it via Google Analytics installed on the other sites you visit.

Google recognizes that discomfort and provides tools for you to address it. I suppose some would argue that "opt-in" is a more appropriate model than "opt-out", but at least Google does make it possible -- and easy -- to opt out of all of their tracking.

Go to google.com, click the "Privacy" link at the bottom, then click "Privacy tools" in the left-hand navigation column to see all of the privacy settings and tools that Google provides. They even make browser plugins that will ensure that you *stay* opted out, even when cookies are deleted, etc.

I realize a lot of people find it very hard to believe that a corporation really would want to help people to avoid the tracking that is in the corporations best interest, but Google's perspective is that long-term the very best approach is to do the thing that is right for the user. Google feels that it acts responsibly with the user information it collects, and that it can use that information to provide a better user experience, helping people to find what they need faster and easier (and this includes ads -- Google's perspective on ads is that any ad you see that is not something you're interested in and find useful is a failure on their part), so that people will want to allow Google to gather the information, but also recognizes that people have legitimate privacy concerns and that they really should be able to avoid the tracking if they don't want it. The company really is committed to helping people maintain their privacy, even if it comes at the expense of Google's short-term bottom line. At least, that's what I see from my perspective as an employee.

There are a whole lot of very libertarian-minded folks at Google, you know, and it's not the type of company where top-down command-and-control directives telling employees to violate their own moral principles work very well.

Re:Excellent timing

[swillden]

Or maybe it is intentional... but I doubt it.

Actually, I suspect it was indeed intentional, but at the same time, completely understandable.

I agree, but I think you're using "intentional" in a slightly different way than I was. I agree with your usage. What I meant by it, though, was that someone at Google had deliberately decide to weight Google Offers e-mails over Groupon e-mails as a way to compete with Groupon. I could certainly be wrong, but I don't think that's what happened.

Re:Excellent timing

[pandrijeczko]

I use it because it has excellent spam filtering and specifically because it has IMAP (and POP3) access - I do use the webmail interface to quickly scan emails on rare occasions, I've not used much in the way of other webmail systems to state whether or not it's more or less clunky than others.

Just be aware that it's not *JUST* webmail access and I suspect a lot of people jumped across to it when Hotmail disabled POP3 access.

If anything, as someone who used to write mail-filtering rules up to about 5 years ago in procmail with my old ISP's mail servers, I kind of miss not having to write them any more.

Re:Excellent timing

[Half-pint HAL]

Every time someone on Slashdot complains about a group mentality on Slashdot they invalidate their own argument.

Typical slashdot response.

Re:Excellent timing

[Half-pint HAL]

You mean you buy a new phone and it assumes that you want GMail until you tell it you don't? That's a little bit rude. If I want GMail, I'll ask for it!

Re:Excellent timing

[anyGould]

No one was forced to use Microsoft but their product was so common that the judge determined that them encouraging customers to use another one of their products was illegal. I guess the call here is determining if Google is a monopoly on the search business.

Strictly speaking, Microsoft didn't get in trouble for "encouraging" - they got in trouble for *assuming* that if you were using Windows, you Obviously wanted Explorer, and then integrated it so you couldn't get rid of it.

Contrast with Google: signing up for one service doesn't automatically sign you up for others (I have Gmail, but not Offers - I don't think I've even heard about it in any detail via Google). It's relatively simple to stop using any (or all) of Google's products at any time.

Now, if Groupon was getting filed under spam, this guy might have a point. If you click "not important" and Google kept putting it in the priority file, they might have a point. If they click "important" on Groupon's mails and they don't promote to priority, they might have a point. But they didn't do any of that.

Re:Excellent timing

[locallyunscene]

The net as it is now yes. But if ISP's aren't content neutral they could become rent-seeking middle-men which set up those barriers to entry. "Oh you can't pay us anywhere near as much as Google/Micorsoft/Yahoo? Sorry, we will not be guaranteeing the delivery of your traffic at this time."

Re:Excellent timing

[MightyMartian]

Well, thus far, Google and similar companies have definitely been opponents of that sort of behavior. But yes, if Google were to sign such agreements with large ISPs that represented the majority of connected users, then you would have a point. Last time I checked, you couldn't investigate someone for what they might do at some future date.

Re:Excellent timing

[williamhb]

Google recognizes that discomfort and provides tools for you to address it. I suppose some would argue that "opt-in" is a more appropriate model than "opt-out", but at least Google does make it possible -- and easy -- to opt out of all of their tracking.

Thanks for your reply, and good to hear you read these things. I realise it's technically possible for them to opt-out, but we could have a debate about "easy". I suspect it is only techies like us that even know there is something to opt-out from, let alone that if you (and the number of steps is quite impressive) click on the finest-print link at the foot of the page (Privacy), get past the fact that the next page does not include Analytics in the list of products, click on Privacy tools on the left (so you have to know there's a tool), scroll down to the third-from bottom link, and then download a plug--in that has "BETA" in big this-might-make-your-system-unstable letters. Given it's Analytics, perhaps I should ask you -- what's the conversion rate on that process! I'm sorry to say it really does remind me uncannily of Arthur Dent's locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet in a basement with no stairs and a sign on the door saying "beware of the leopard"!

I realize a lot of people find it very hard to believe that a corporation really would want to help people to avoid the tracking that is in the corporations best interest, but Google's perspective is that long-term the very best approach is to do the thing that is right for the user.

Actually, that's not what makes me feel uncomfortable at all. I know very well Google is full of nice people because I've met lots of them. And sure enough, given the data Google has, I haven't seen them do anything nefarious with it. But I feel uneasy when society relies on companies "continuing to be nice", rather than putting well-thought out consumer protections in place -- especially when it comes to privacy and competition rules. The cod phrase I tend to use for this reasoning is "SCO was a nice and friendly company once too".

so what

[acvh]

google gives you a free email account, then uses it to market stuff to you. why would anyone be surprised, or upset? there are many free email options out there, use another one if you don't like how this one works.

Re:so what

[Glendale2x]

Precisely. This is a non-issue. If you don't like it then don't use gmail or use paid mail hosting where they aren't looking for ways to advertise to you in your email.

Re:so what

[Palmsie]

I think people are missing the point. Of course this is not surprising. Of course a for-profit company wants to advertise their own products. Of course they want you to use their stuff before you use Groupon et al. Of course. The point is, Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be). It claims that its algorithms are unbiased. I think that is all the author was trying to point out (i.e. they may not be as unbiased as Google is touting themselves to be... as unsurprising as it is). A small point but an important one.

Re:so what

[Anonymous Coward]

gmail is not google search. they tout being unbiased with their search results, not through adsense and other products.

Re:so what

[antifoidulus]

You also have to keep in mind there are 2 perspectives here, the perspective of the email user and the perspective of the advertiser. If someone pays to put an ad on Google, they expect Google to place that ad in accordance with whatever contract they signed. If Google is taking their money and then still advertising it's own products over theirs, then that is definitely a conflict of interest.

Re:so what

[edumacator]

This is a tempest in a teapot. I have already marked Groupon as having a low priority in my Priority Inbox, so that is where that comes in. I also get Google Offers. The first time it came in as important. I then marked it unimportant, and it never showed up there again.

If Google kept putting their deals in my priority inbox, I would have been upset.

Now if they had marked my mother-in-law's emails as important, I would have gone back to hotmail.

Re:so what

[hedwards]

I agree, unless more information comes to light that makes this some sort of nefarious plot, this just doesn't sound like it's a big deal. As it stands now, I'm not really sure why I as a gmail user should care. It's not like Google is preventing me from getting those messages or ensuring that they are brought to my attention. For emails of priority, they always got their own label anyways. Google hasn't taken away that option either.

Re:so what

[dmendanor]

Agreed. Between this and the pending FTC investigation, it seems like everyone has it in for Google right now. Personally, I don't see anything unethical in what they're doing here. A little annoying? Perhaps. But nothing out of bounds.

Re:so what

[black3d]

They even say they will when you sign up..

17. Advertisements

        17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information.

        17.2 The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.

        17.3 In consideration for Google granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Google may place such advertising on the Services.

Re:so what

[zill]

Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be)

No, they don't. Unless you provide evidence of this, you are wrong.

According to Google's TOS:

4.2 Google is constantly innovating in order to provide the best possible experience for its users. You acknowledge and agree that the form and nature of the Services which Google provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you.

4.3 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Google may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Google’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time. You do not need to specifically inform Google when you stop using the Services.

4.4 You acknowledge and agree that if Google disables access to your account, you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your account details or any files or other content which is contained in your account.

4.5 You acknowledge and agree that while Google may not currently have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be set by Google at any time, at Google’s discretion.

Basically Google says: we can change our service at any time. We can stop our service at any time. You can lose access to your data at any time. We can limit your data usage at any time. Nowhere do they claim to "providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services".

Corporations are not here to help you pursue happiness. They're here to take every cent out of your wallet, and then take your wallet. Why would they "provide a fair service" when it doesn't help them maximize profits?

Re:so what

[drolli]

Well. But nobody paid google to put deliver the ad via gmail.

Re:so what

[drolli]

Yes, and there are even more non-free ones. Having email without any PITA and weird TOS is worth 50Euro/Year.

Re:so what

[swillden]

You also have to keep in mind there are 2 perspectives here, the perspective of the email user and the perspective of the advertiser. If someone pays to put an ad on Google, they expect Google to place that ad in accordance with whatever contract they signed. If Google is taking their money and then still advertising it's own products over theirs, then that is definitely a conflict of interest.

Besides the other objection already noted, I think Google's model of for-pay advertising inoculates them from conflict of interest. You see, advertisers only pay for the ads that users (a) see and (b) click on. So if Google chooses to advertise its own products over a client's, the client actually didn't, and doesn't, pay at all.

If that situation were to arise (and, as the other poster noted, I don't think that's a reasonable description of this case, since Groupon didn't pay Google anything to deliver those e-mails), it would put Google in the position of being able to choose whether to show their own ads or their clients' ads based on which would make Google more money -- but that is exactly the same situation that arises on AdWords all the time when there are multiple advertisers vying for the top slot (which is basically always). Google runs a real-time auction and displays the ad that will pay Google the most, based on the price the advertiser is willing to pay per click and the estimated probability that it will get clicked.

If Google decides that its ad will generate more revenue for Google than the client/competitor's ad, that really is no different at all from two competitors duking it out for the top spot and one deciding it's willing to pay a little more. This is particularly true since the fee Google charges the advertiser that "wins" isn't what that advertiser is willing to pay, but what the top loser is willing to pay -- by putting itself in the top spot, Google is "paying" (by foregoing the revenue) what that advertiser would have paid. It's really no different than if another advertiser were to jump in and set its bid price at infinity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7l0a2PVhPQ

Re:so what

[X.25]

The point is, Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be). It claims that its algorithms are unbiased.

Where do they claim that?

Re:so what

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be). It claims that its algorithms are unbiased.

Do they? They used to claim that what their search algorithm provided was an opinion, with all the freedom that gives them. Do you have a source for them claiming that it's "unbiased" (whatever that means)?

Re:so what

[anyGould]

google gives you a free email account, then uses it to market stuff to you when you request it

FTFY: If you don't sign up for Google Offers, you don't get those emails in Gmail.

Just a thought

[liquidweaver]

So, some random blogger posts a screenshot and we implicitly trust it's contents? I could do this with Greasemonkey to GIMP. I am no Google apologist, but my spidey sense it tingling like when I get an email full of "Amazing Pictures" from my grandma.

Re:Just a thought

[liquidweaver]

FYI, he is censoring his blog. I asked the same question there, and it's been magically erased.

Re:Just a thought

[edumacator]

He also has a grand total of one blog post.

Re:Just a thought

[Seumas]

Yeah, I don't get the concern.

Of all the email that ever comes to your inbox on gmail, I think Google is most certain that this one piece of email that you sign up for (I've never used daily deals and as a result have never received an email about it) and is sent from themselves to someone on their own gmail service through their own filters is most certainly legitimate and maybe a priority message by default (you know, since it's time sensitive... regarding a DAILY deal).

Re:Just a thought

[Anarchduke]

Oh no, its a real screen shot. The blogger signed up a new google account with google priority inbox which automatically places messages from google as part of the important stuff. so all the other spamvertisements in the inbox Google doesn't see as important, seeing as how there is no history of that google account ever opening any of those mails.
To sum up
1. new account w/ no history
2. mail from google is considered important by default
3. there are no other email addresses considered important by the algorithm because there is no history on the account.

Result: The google mail is the only email the algorithm treated as important!

Obviously, it must be an act of evil by Google.

Re:Just a thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. There's no way you could make anything look remotely believable with GIMP.

Re:Just a thought

[JeffKN]

I don't think he's intentionally censoring anyone. Note, for example, that he reposted a fairly critical comment by Eccy that didn't make it onto the page for some reason.

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

Re:Just a thought

[jgtg32a]

That's more than most blogs.

Re:Just a thought

[npsimons]

He also has a grand total of one blog post.

Hot damn! Can we go for the trifecta of FUD? First, comments on the blog questioning the post are deleted; second, we find out that there is only one post to the blog; anybody want to go for number three and find out which one of Microsoft or Apple was paying this fraud? Or maybe the character is completely made up by an Apple or MS FUDster. I'd laugh, but I've seen this joke too many times before.

Re:Just a thought

[nprz]

It doesn't even need to be shopped. You can mark your emails important/unimportant by yourself to make it look like that, just like you can read an email and then mark it as unread.
But if someone creates a new gmail account and signs up for all those services, I wouldn't be surprised if the google emails come up as prioritized (since they are from a trusted source). There isn't a way through groupon to really confirm that someone signed up for those emails (you can put in anyones email address and fill it with spam).
It just takes a couple markings of groupon as important and gmail as unimportant and after that it will remember what is important.

Damning indeed!

[The Dawn Of Time]

Damning screenshot evidence? No way that can be faked.

Re:Damning indeed!

[Mashiki]

Of course not. It's perfect in every form, especially those blurry screenshots.

Because you already read messages from Google?

[Meshach]

I wonder if that message is marked as important because you read the other message from Google (the Welcome message)? I can only assume that messages are marked important / non-important based on your reading habits and with so little to go on maybe that is all it takes for GMail to consider the message "Important"?

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[phantomfive]

Here is what the guy says in the article:

4. I didn't open any of the resulting subscription confirmation emails. Since Priority Inbox sorts emails based on your reading/replying history, I didn't want to give Priority Inbox any additional information about which daily deals emails to prioritize the next day.

Frankly, he could have faked it, but it is an experiment any of us could repeat in two days, so it would make him look like an idiot.

Personally though, it's really hard for me to care one way or the other. At worst, it's probably some fluke of the algorithm Google uses, and can be rectified easily by reading a couple emails from the company that you want. It's not like they are shoving it into spam or something where you will never read it.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. I filtered all my Google alters with a special label and had them bypass the inbox. I still read them, but not all of them. After a little while google thought they were spam and started sending them to the junk box. I had to fish them out.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

Google marks their own mails as important by default. Mark them as unimportant if you don't want them showing up. Whether it's a notice about daily deals, account changes, service notifications, whatever - their own mailing are marked as important to begin with. (Hey, it's their free service, after all). It even says this in the service details for priority inbox. This is a bunch of noise about nothing.

Coming up next: Blogger discovers Microsoft advertises their own services in ads on their sites more than other peoples ads...

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

The service description says that Google mails will be prioritized by default. He VOLUNTARILY signed up for a service which says he'll receive priority mails from Google, and then complains that he receives priority mails from Google. Alas, most people are stupid and he'll probably get some air-time for his theory (and already has).

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[hedwards]

Well, to be fair, the ones that represent account changes and service notifications could reasonably be assumed to be important.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[tonyreadsnews]

Even if he didn't open the welcome message, it might have marked it as important because it found another 'important' email with some similar contents such as being from Google.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

Interesting.. I posted a comment pointing out that the service agreement says he'll get Google mails as priority messages and that he can opt-out of them, and after it was up for a few minutes, he deleted the comment.

So pretty much, it is as above. He signed up for a service which says he'll get priority Google emails by default when activated, and then starts complaining that exactly that is happening. What a douche.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[swillden]

Well, to be fair, the ones that represent account changes and service notifications could reasonably be assumed to be important.

I strongly suspect that the cause of the offer prioritization is a rule that was put in place to accomplish exactly that, and that it never occurred to anyone to make an exception for offers in that rule.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

For prosperity's sake, posted to his Blog.. wonder how long this will last:

---------

Interesting.. I point out that you signed up for a Google service which says you'll get priority Google emails by default when activated, and you complain when exactly that happens. .. And you delete my comment.

Perhaps think through your article again, taking this into account rather than just deleting comments pointing out the obvious. Or perhaps learn to read service agreements when signing up for services. For instance, this Google-owned blogger service which says they can delete any blog for any reason at any time.

You can't even claim they'd be silencing you, as when you signed up, you agreed to those very Terms of Service which say you have no right to an account and it can be removed for no purpose whatsoever.

You'll get a lot further with anti-Google bashing if you first of all actually read their Terms of Service before writing a blog post complaining that they supplied you with exactly what you asked for.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

To be honest, I think the article is 90%+ sleaze. They're insinuating that Google (the organization) is anti-competitive because they defaulted to promoting their own service, as part of a user-customizable feature, and one (let's not forget) that's actually very simple to correct.

Three things.

One, as I said, it can be changed. Downvote the google offers, upvote your mother.

Two, the thing about a lot of google's services is that they're algorithm-based. The funny thing about algorithms is a high rate of unintended consequences, for better or worse. If I understand correctly, the filter used to assign the important flag automatically is essentially a reverse application of the spam filter. There could be tons of places in the code or in their databases that causes this to get tweaked up. Even if it wasn't brought to light, it might have been "corrected" later either by accident or as part of a code review stemming from other efforts to not appear anti-competitive.

Three, again, it's algorithm-based, a lot like spam filters. Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard of any of those "competing services." Is it really that unlikely that their algorithm hasn't yet been flooded with "These services are Important" signals for those services?

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[swillden]

It even says this in the service details for priority inbox.

Where does it say that? I've looked and can't find it.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

Yep.. he deleted that one too. Obviously he knows he's in the wrong if he has to take to deleting comments.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

17. Advertisements

        17.1 Some of the Services are supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information.

        17.2 The manner, mode and extent of advertising by Google on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.

        17.3 In consideration for Google granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Google may place such advertising on the Services.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[swillden]

Hmm, okay. So not anything related specifically to Priority Inbox, but the "manner, mode and extent" being "subject to change" would certainly seem to cover it.

My money is still on this being an unintentional side effect of a rule intended to boost the priority of service notifications, account changes, etc.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[black3d]

Sorry yes, you're right I should have worded my original post differently. Something along the lines of "signed up for a service which says that you will be targetted with specific advertising in a multitude of forms and locations", and the priority inbox falls into the umbrella of services.

I agree that it's an unintentional side-effect. All Google mails being treated as priority messages. I was just trying to point out that he can't complain about receiving targetted advertising messages when he signed up for a service that says he'll receive targetted advertising messages. :)

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[metrometro]

Maybe it's just me, but I've never heard of any of those "competing services."

Thus, we locate the last person on Earth who has not heard of GroupOn.

Rejoice, friend, because you are lucky soul.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[macshit]

To be honest, I think the article is 90%+ sleaze. They're insinuating that Google (the organization) is anti-competitive because they defaulted to promoting their own service, as part of a user-customizable feature, and one (let's not forget) that's actually very simple to correct.

Hmm, it appears that MS has budgeted some astroturfing to along with their anti-Google lobbying push...

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

I meant specifically the ones in the screenshot: Tippr, yipit, homerun, scoutmob. Looking at it again, I see Groupon and Living Social listed, which I have heard of.

Re:Because you already read messages from Google?

[errandum]

He forgets something important.

Google tracks you by more than your account. Unless he changed system and IP address I highly doubt gmail didn't "know" who it was.

Shocking... simply shocking...

[Anonymous Coward]

that e-mails FROM GOOGLE might be classified as "Important" while anything else (Groupon, LivingSocial, et al) will be classified as NOT "Important" unless and until you specifically TELL it that those e-mails are important.

Somebody get the smelling-salts because I think I might faint.

Uninteresting, from an algorithmic view

[Anonymous Coward]

They mention the enabling of "Important markers", which I'd interpret (having no knowledge of how they do things) to "features associated with mail commonly actually read by the masses". Now, Google offers is fairly new - I can envision a case where someone who just signed up for the service actually reads the first few mails, gets burned out, and ignores the rest - Groupon, Google, whatever it is. It's possible that, say, the average Offers user is two weeks old, and has read 3 mails (roughly 20-25% of the mail) whereas the average Groupon user is, say, three months old, and probably read about the same (aka: 3 out of 90, or ~5%) making it llook unlikely that you care about the mail. If this theory is correct, it will taper off over time, as accounts age and cease to care.

If you want to do a REAL test of whether what they're doing is shady, A) turn off any "use general data" settings, and b) mark a Groupon mail important in your account, and mark Google offers unimportant, and see what happens the next day.

Filters FTW

[barlevg]

Do you know how easy it is to create a filter to de-prioritize emails in Gmail? Gmail filters are the easiest things in the world to use. I don't know why ANYONE would complain about this when they can correct it in about three clicks.

Re:Filters FTW

[hedwards]

They could be easier to use, but they're hardly difficult to use. I mostly wish they'd beef them up to make it easier to have long lists of things going to the same label and a more efficient way of collecting all my order confirmations under the same label. But, it's really not difficult to use as is.

Re:Filters FTW

[vux984]

Do you know how easy it is to create a filter to de-prioritize emails in Gmail? Gmail filters are the easiest things in the world to use. I don't know why ANYONE would complain about this when they can correct it in about three clicks.

Conversely... I don't know why google would need to automatically prioritize their offers, since anyone who wanted them marked priority could do it themselves in 3 clicks.

That said... I don't know anyone on the planet who actually wants daily marketing email messages automatically marked priority. The only people who would ever want that...are the marketing companies sending them.

One of the first rules of user interface design is that defaults should fit what most users want. This is why defaulting "yes" to installing toolbars for X when you install Y, or defaulting to opting in to affiliate marketing messaging is a user interface fail. Its not what the vast majority of users want, and forcing them to have to use software almost "defensively" to keep from being abused makes the software markedly less enjoyable to use.

It doesn't matter how few clicks users need to go through to "fix" it.

Oh please...

[Anonymous Coward]

While Google's spam filter is amazing, Priority Inbox is a crapshoot at best. I've seen it mark all sorts of unimportant nonsense as "important", and vice versa, to the point that I had to turn the feature off altogether. One random guy no one's ever heard of getting some random coupon spam e-mails marked "unimportant" is as much evidence of collusion as their spam filter missing the occasional "make ur p3n1s bigggar" is evidence that they're selling Extenze on the side.

Re:Oh please...

[fast turtle]

Guess it's nice to know that Google wont be using Priority Inbox with me as I've got it turned off. Didn't need or want the feature when it was offered so disabled it right away. Anyone else who didn't either has a need for the damn thing or doesn't have a clue how to setup labels and filters to do what they want.

In other words, nothing to see here citizen, move along.

So, one screenshot = damning evidence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last week, Postini (owned by Google) blocked an email from Google (related to an online training I did). Could this be evidence that Google actually automates a lot of systems, and relies on the user to train them for better performance?!

Re:So, one screenshot = damning evidence?

[hedwards]

I think it's been established for some time that the spam filter is heavily automated and that things like a person labeling a message as spam has a significant impact on how it's received. I've often suspected that if a message is labeled as spam in one account and it's in other accounts that it gets labeled as spam there as well.

Non-story

[exomondo]

who would have thought a for profit company would ever try to push its products and services before the competition?

send yourself an email marked with 'high importance' and it ends up in your priority inbox...so google is sending their offer emails with 'high importance' where other companies aren't, how is this a story at all?

Re:Non-story

[sortius_nod]

It's not, looking at where the article is hosted, well, it's the ONLY post on a blog.

Seems like a bunch of FUD to me. It seems "Kasey Moffat" (I suspect an invented character) created both a blog & twitter account just to do this.

Alarm bells anyone?

Re:Non-story

[lennier1]

Probably not marked in the usual sense but the Gmail system identifies it as something "privileged" and treats it accordingly.

Re:Non-story

[exomondo]

well the priority inbox is essentially an attempt to separate solicited mail from unsolicited mail, they know their offers emails are solicited because you signed up for it with them and assuming you are opening offers emails from other companies over time it will determine those as being solicited too.

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not, looking at where the article is hosted, well, it's the ONLY post on a blog.

Seems like a bunch of FUD to me. It seems "Kasey Moffat" (I suspect an invented character) created both a blog & twitter account just to do this.

Alarm bells anyone?

Besides, if I truly thought google was abusing their privileges, I'd have expected them to nuke a negative blog from THEIR blog services.

Blogger: Copyright © 1999 – 2011 Google

This is particularly ironic considering the comments below pointing out that their refutations on the blog in question haven't been showing up. (That could just be waiting for moderation though).

Re:Non-story

[Zadaz]

Agreed. And sine Priority Inbox uses past behavior to track what's a priority and there's no record of what this user did with their email account before, their claims are unsubstantiated.

It would also be trivial to Photoshop.

Re:Non-story

[Skuld-Chan]

I'd say it raises alarms because google offers doesn't do that on my email inbox...

Re:Non-story

[MaxBooger]

Yea, I'm hearing the ringing as well. Google seems to be the target of some sort of campaign, but... from whom? And why?

Re:Non-story

[1u3hr]

"Kasey Moffat"s blog has one and only one entry, the one linked here. And he Slashdot story was submitted by "anonymous".

Who benefits from this? the "Groupon" spammers -- sorry, email marketers -- who are so unfairly not highlighted automatically by Google as "important". And Slashdot goes along with these SEO scumbags hyping a story.

Re:Non-story

[matunos]

Yeah, sounds like the issue isn't so much about anti-competitive behavior, but an abuse of the email priority settings.

Re:Non-story

[exomondo]

they might not even be doing that, it's quite possible that given the priority email system is designed to distinguish between solicited and unsolicited mail they just put in an exception for google offers since they already know it's solicited.

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how you can tell 5 comments into a story that slashdot is pulling the bullshit wool over everyone's eyes.

Re:Non-story

[Miseph]

Apple.

Because they are competing in a very fast-growing and highly profitable market where Apple has a lead, but Google is very quickly catching up and looks likely to pass them in the short-term.

For reference, the last time Apple was in a situation like this, it was Microsoft they were up against.

All that said, this is PURELY speculative. I have absolutely no concrete evidence to support this hypothesis, nor am I likely to acquire any. Apple has a motive and the means to engage in the sort of PR skullduggery suggested by parent, and I simply don't see any other players with the same degree of either.

Re:Non-story

[Mistlefoot]

Definitly.

A reply on the original article is

"Isaac said...

        Google knows that you signed up for Google Offers because it's your own account.

        They don't know the same thing about other daily offer emails because they do not have access to those other site's subscription information, and all these emails look like spam. So without that additional information available, how can Google tell the difference between spam/semi-spam and things that you sign up for? It can't, until you tell it they are important."

Re:Non-story

[beckett]

apple owns groupon?

Re:Non-story

[ThunderBird89]

My thoughts exactly. I'd call those emails in the screenshot SPAM, and treat them accordingly.

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems "Kasey Moffat" (I suspect an invented character) created both a blog & twitter account just to do this.

Kasey is in fact a real person. I went to college with him.

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

or offers daily deals?

Re:Non-story

[AmiMoJo]

Priority inbox doesn't work like that. It looks at what emails have been read immediately and responded to quickly in the past to try and predict how important new emails are. If you immediately open Google's mails it will think they are important to you and put them in the priority category. If you do the same with Groupon they will end up in there too.

It is the opposite of spam filtering and uses the same techniques. Instead of deciding what is crap it decides what is important.

Re:Non-story

[Robert Zenz]

Well, the blog has Google Ads on it...any further questions?

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems "Kasey Moffat" (I suspect an invented character) created both a blog & twitter account just to do this.

Kasey is in fact a real person. I went to college with him.

I went to college with you too.

Re:Non-story

[TheRaven64]

Huh, my mail client marks everything with the high importance flag set as probable spam. I don't think anyone's ever used it in a mail that's actually important. The word 'important' in the title is also a good indicator that it might be spam.

Re:Non-story

[Stupendoussteve]

Or Facebook, who has already been caught trying to do similar.

I'd say Facebook or Microsoft have a larger bone to pick with Google and have more to gain by causing people to lose faith in Google. Apple's issue is mobile devices... this does nothing to affect Google's mobile device business.

Re:Non-story

[Stupendoussteve]

Vell, Kasey's just zis guy, you know?

Re:Non-story

[mcmonkey]

Priority inbox doesn't work like that. It looks at what emails have been read immediately and responded to quickly in the past to try and predict how important new emails are. If you immediately open Google's mails it will think they are important to you and put them in the priority category. If you do the same with Groupon they will end up in there too.

It is the opposite of spam filtering and uses the same techniques. Instead of deciding what is crap it decides what is important.

Maybe that's how the priority inbox works in theory. In reality, my priority inbox was always full of spam. And I don't mean commercial emails that I've subscribed to. I mean full on, enhance your manhood online pharmacy spam. Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.

I never really got the usefulness of the priority inbox. I have a place for important emails. It's called my inbox.

Re:Non-story

[bonch]

"I have absolutely no evidence or basis for this, but hey, I believe it and that's enough for me."

How is Google passing Apple in the short-term? Counting iPads, iPhones, and iPods, iOS has an enormous lead over Android. You just rarely hear about iOS combined marketshare because the Google-friendly media makes sure to compare all Android devices to one iOS phone.

Re:Non-story

[Anonymous Coward]

-1, missing the point.

This isn't about whether these mails are considered spam or ham (non-spam), it's whether they're considered Important in the Priority Inbox or not. EVERYTHING that reaches your inbox is considered ham by the system.

Re:Non-story

[mrchaotica]

Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.

Why wasn't your spam marked as spam already? Maybe unless your account is brand-new or something (and the filter hasn't been trained yet), it shouldn't be showing up in your inbox at all.

Re:Non-story

[mcmonkey]

Perhaps because I usually mark spam as 'spam' immediately, that counts as reading or responding.

Why wasn't your spam marked as spam already? Maybe unless your account is brand-new or something (and the filter hasn't been trained yet), it shouldn't be showing up in your inbox at all.

That's really a question for the folks at Gmail. I've had my current gmail address since 2005, and make liberal use of the 'report spam' button. (It's right next to delete.) Yet I still get spam in my inbox (and priority inbox the few times I checked it).

Re:Non-story

[exomondo]

Priority inbox doesn't work like that.

You haven't tried it then. If you send yourself an email marked with high importance it will end up in your priority inbox. Of course that is not the only way to get emails to end up there, essentially they are determining what is and is not solicited, given they know the email from their offers is solicited they probably took a shortcut on it.

All that shows is that default settings

[gearloos]

The Screen Shot isn't daming google. In fact, all it shows is that the default setting for importance for Google offers on Gmail is High. Go figure. This is another case of a nho news story getting by meta moderation. Cmon guys. We can do better than this.

Reliance on FREE services

[Ice Station Zebra]

Requires that you pay a non-monetary price. Nothing to see here folks.

Obviously...

[Anonymous Coward]

For those that did not RTF article, the blogger states: "I didn't open any of the resulting subscription confirmation emails". With no information to to prioritize based on, is it any wonder that the only emails that it finds important are ones from google itself? At least I would hope they don't think that they are sending you unimportant stuff!

No monopoly over email

[js_sebastian]

I think people are missing the point. Of course this is not surprising. Of course a for-profit company wants to advertise their own products. Of course they want you to use their stuff before you use Groupon et al. Of course. The point is, Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be). It claims that its algorithms are unbiased. I think that is all the author was trying to point out (i.e. they may not be as unbiased as Google is touting themselves to be... as unsurprising as it is). A small point but an important one.

Google may be in a monopoly or nearabouts position in search, but they definitely do not have a monopoly over email. If their search algorithms were biased in favor of their products, that would be a big deal for an antitrust case. Biased email prioritization? Not so much. Using one product as leverage to promote another is legal, like it or not, and it happens all the time. Only when you use a product that is in a monopoly position as leverage does that become illegal.

Personally, I read email in thunderbird, so I do not use this prioritization feature. As a user, I would become annoyed the moment the system does not follow my indications, but slightly biased defaults would not really be an issue for me.

Re:No monopoly over email

[swillden]

It's not illegal, but it's also not Google's style. My bet is that it was an accident, and that it will be fixed.

Re:No monopoly over email

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is, Google touts itself as providing a fair service that doesn't favor its own services (as conflicting as that may be).

McDonald's touts itself as a company where happy, friendly people carefully prepare tasteful and healthy food for beautiful and intelligent customers.

Re:No monopoly over email

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem here is a blog article that's badly written/researched and biased.

Wait... Blogspot is owned by Google!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a conspiracy!

Mark it as unimportant :)

[dr00p]

Just mark it as unimportant, and next time you get it should not hit Priority Inbox any more. :)

Another idiot, clueless blogger

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll bet $10 that moron has clicked on more than one "portland coffee" type of email before and even though he's signed up for all those other offers, he's probably never clicked on a single one.

Unfortunately, like all clueless, uninformed, idiot bloggers, they don't actually pay attention to anything that's actually going on in the world let alone little things happening around them in their own unimportant little lives. If they were to actually use Gmail instead of making clueless "observations", they'd see that the emails typically marked as "priority" have some sort of history with you. Whether they've opened emails from that person before or replied to emails from that person before.

It learns...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark the Google emails down, and the Groupon ones up, and it should learn.

Working as intended

[Anonymous Coward]

As I posted as a comment on the blog post (who knows if it'll get deleted since random comments seem to be disappearing) A brand new email account has no past information about what you've read or replied to and can't make assumptions about random emails. It does however mark Google email with priority until you tell it not to. So basically what the blog post is saying is the priority inbox feature is working as intended.

its not preferrential treatment

[Anonymous Coward]

its just Groupon and 99% of any similar "email offers" are fsking spammers, the amount of shitty affilate spam they send me from all of their 30 domains is staggering considering i have never signed up for any of their shit,

there are no legit "special offer email services" just spammers

What's the problem here?

[homesnatch]

Cross selling or bundling is only an issue if there is a monopoly. Gmail is hardly a monopoly. Gmail is 3rd behind Microsoft and Yahoo for webmail market share.

Slimy != evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They can be anything they want, as long as it's not evil.

Maybe the experiment doesn't tell the whole pictur

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it was marked as important because a lot of other users read it quickly.

I think we're missing something important

[19thNervousBreakdown]

People actually use "services" like Groupon and whatever this Google thing is? That's the real scoop to me, anyway.

Re:I think we're missing something important

[swillden]

People actually use "services" like Groupon and whatever this Google thing is? That's the real scoop to me, anyway.

It surprises you that people like discounts on stuff?

Re:I think we're missing something important

[Anonymous Coward]

Quite a large number of people make use of Groupon.

Mainly because their scam isn't against the consumers in this one, they scam small businesses who are bad at math.

Re:I think we're missing something important

[hairyfeet]

Eh if it is anything like the Tigerdirect and Newegg daily deals I can understand it. I mean you'd have to be nuts NOT to want to pay less than half for stuff you were planning to get anyway. Just the other day I got a Samsung 1Tb Ecodrive for $35 with NO MIR crap. No refurb either. Seriously who can beat that?

So while I don't use the above services if they are anything like the ones I do use I can see why. I've saved myself, my family, and my customers a ton of money by getting these daily emails. it has gotten to the point I have several customers that just leave me cash and say "hey when a deal on that thing I need comes up just snatch it, kay?" which is how 4 of my customers also ended up with those 1Tb drives. Really nice drive BTW, the 32Mb cache makes them pretty damned fast for a 5400RPM drive and the slower speed makes them ultra cool and quiet.

Re:I think we're missing something important

[Anonymous Coward]

To the tune of billions of dollars. Where you been the last 3+ years?

You are the product being sold to advertisers

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the product being sold to advertisers in gmal. It isn't your inbox unless you paid for it.

Bad spam filtering

[Animats]

Why would any "offer", obviously bulk mail, ever go into the "Priority inbox"? Even if you wanted it, it should go into the "Bulk" folder.

Re:Bad spam filtering

[black3d]

Its a service you sign up for. Hence, not junk mail.

Postage is the solution

[amiga500]

I would like to see a feature added to mail programs which allows me to set a price level above which I would be interested in reading a piece of mail. LinkedIn attempted to do this with their InMail, except they set the level and they keep the fee. The $5 fee is so high that no one pays it, and instead recruiters spam you by inviting you to join their network. I'd like to set the level and I'd like to receive the fee if I open their piece of mail. If Groupon or Google Offers really wants me to read their mail, they could simply attach some postage to it. Gmail would see the postage amount and prioritize it based on my preferences. Like a CPM ad, if I don't open the email, the sender wouldn't get charged the postage.

Mute point... segment doomed.

[__aazsst3756]

This so far has proven a very popular, but unprofitable market segment. Only a matter of time before Groupon is bust.

A blog with one story

[Anonymous Coward]

made the front page of Slashdot? Why do I even subscribe?

You posted another troll article, idiot.

[Nimey]

I strongly suspect you did it to drive page hits.

Re:You posted another troll article, idiot.

[Anonymous Coward]

I strongly suspect you did it to drive page hits.

It was probably an honest mistake, timothy must have misread something for "BitCoin".

Nothing wrong with that

[CyranoDeBergerac]

Google doesn't have a monopoly in e-mail. Not even close. They can - legally and ethically - use their e-mail service to market whatever they want to you. If they want, they can fill your inbox with spam about Google Docs, Google Maps, Android. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.

I'm getting a bit sick of bogus "anti-competitive" stories. Restrictions on this sort of thing only apply *if you're a monopoly*. If you're not, you can do all the cross promotion and bundling you want. Consumers get to decide whether they like it, and whether they want to take their business elsewhere. You're not obliged to 'play fair' with any of your competitors.

Must be a lot of money to be made...

[93 Escort Wagon]

... since everyone and his brother is getting into this game. Out of the blue I started getting "daily local deals" from Amazon - and they just signed me up without asking. Facebook's done that as well.

I don't like Google mis-using its position in this case; but (once it's offered in my area) I'd be more upset about getting opted-in automatically than what priority the email arrives with. I don't want to get these sorts of emails, period. I've got a twitchy trigger finger when it comes to flagging spam.

Better question

[John Jamieson]

Is slashdot trying to chase away customers by posting more and more troll pieces?

Re:Better question

[stretch0611]

Another Bitcoin article in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Re:Better question

[Tim C]

No, they're trying to drive page impressions (and therefore ad revenue and perceived site activity/relevance) by whipping the masses up into a frenzy. It's been like this for a long, long time, though it does seem to be getting worse lately.

A blog with a single post.

[acid06]

This is the source for this bit of "news".
Come on, Slashdot... don't disappoint me... :-(

Slashdot: Consumerist for Nerds, none that matters

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing way too much "nerd-consumerist" posts and not enough news-for-nerds-stuff-that-matters.

I mean like, bitcoin is not news, google's business as usual isn't news. If the news item doesn't say "This is cool guys" I really don't care that much for it. Groupon has yet to serve me something that I want, so until it does, it's not news for nerds, it's coupons-for-foodies-and-fashionistas. Likewise bitcoin, the fact that it doesn't work and people are being ripped off left and right isn't news. The only bitcoin article that was newsworthy was the RCMP busting into someone farming the coins thinking it was a pot grow-op. It was only news worthy by virtue of how much energy is being wasted (The RCMP probably wouldn't have thought it was a grow-op had the usage being gradually ramped up. No this guy must have had $'s in his eyes and went out and bought 20,000$ in CPU's for this.)

Anyway, please stop using Slashdot when the Consumerist is a better place to whine about unfair or evil business practices. Slashdot only cares when it's a licensing or patent issue, which slashdot's readers tend to be lefty-communist-liberal types that think everything should be open source or free. If it involves real money, it doesn't belong on slashdot.

Dear Google,

[Kagetsuki]

The opt-in SPAM from you shows up on the top of your free e-mail service, above all the other opt-in SPAM I get. I don't see how your SPAM could possibly be more important than other SPAM on your own service. This is unfair, and I call shenanigans. Now excuse me while I go and purchase some more coupons for massages and manicures.

groupon is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't really matter. Whether true or not, many techies and vendors believe that:
1. groupon is using money from new deals to pay for old deals
2. that groupon is a bad deal for vendors compared to other types of promotion
3 .that groupon will fail soon leaving many buyers and vendors s.o.l

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

In this thread...

[Anonymous Coward]

people who don't understand machine learning.

No in GMail

[Urkki]

GMail is not in a position of market dominance, at least not according to TFS. So, it's a free service funded by ads, and it promotes them using built-in system of the service? Somehow I don't see an issue here. However, if somebody feels they're getting spam they did not opt in to and can't unsubscribe from, then I'm sure there's room for juicy lawsuit, based on spam laws. But that's not the case here, is it?

Re:monopoly on AWESOME

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares if their monopoly is on Awesome!? Using monopoly power is ILLEGAL!!

If thus follows logically that using your monopoly powers on awesome to make more stuff awesome would also be illegal! Duh...

Re:False

[thegarbz]

No one was forced to use Microsoft but their product was so common...

False. The anti-competitive ruling against Microsoft did not come down because it was merely common, it was handed down for exactly what you incorrectly claim didn't happen.

We were forced to use Microsoft, we are no longer. Remember at the time of the ruling Microsoft was the only product on the desktop anywhere to be seen. It had nearly all of the software market writing software for it (these days we have FOSS software and Mac software a plenty). Linux flat out wasn't an option then. Mac's had zero games, a handful of apps and were usually only found in schools where someone got a great student deal, or the media industry. Windows came pre-loaded on all machines not because it was the popular option, but because Microsoft gave kickbacks / discounts to people who would install it. Compare it to this case. I can bypass Google right now by going to www.bing.com. I can find a replacement for gmail at www.hotmail.com, mail.yahoo.com, and countless others.

These days is I would agree your comment is perfectly right. I can run Linux even OSX on my PC. I can order a PC without Windows pre-installed and quite critically I expect that non-windows machine to run in every way like another PC. Back in the 90s this was definitely not so. Not only the market share, but also the ease of access to alternatives come into consideration when you have a monopoly.

Now on the software, Microsoft bundled the application with the system and refused to let the use remove it. Sure the user could choose not to run internet explorer, and hide the icons, but there was no way to run Windows without IE installed. Contrast that with this scenario here where you expressly need to enable the priority inbox, and separately need to go and sign up to get the daily deals, and on top of everything after you use Groupon once or twice it also starts appearing in the priority inbox putting them both on perfectly equal footing.

There's no way this could be seen as anti-competitive, and the differences between the Microsoft case are immense.

I'm not defending Google but...

[pandrijeczko]

...if it's free to set up multiple email accounts on Google and if you are that concerned about the priority of "authorised spam" emails (i.e. advertising emails that you have agreed to receive), why not just create two accounts, one for private use and one for subscriptions?

If you weren't using Google then you'd be inundated with a lot more spam than on Gmail because Google's mail filters are so good - and if I have to put up with a bit of prioritised emails of stuff I've subscribed to avoid virtually all spam, then so be it. The fact is, I don't subscribe to all that crap in the first place...

Don't feed the troll..

[tbird81]

Yes, don't feed Timothy!

Evidence?

[Internetuser1248]

If I presented a single screenshot as evidence of anything I would be laughed off the website.

Gmail is a free service...

[Anonymous Coward]

What a ridiculous post. Gmail is FREE. If you have a problem with it send an email to Google and tell them what you think. They owe you nothing. If you're not happy with the service then change to a different free hosted email provider.

Re:False

[high]

That's a lot of text but you still didn't contradict the previous persons statement. Instead I think you used another definition of the word forced. Your definition is probably closer to something like "it was inconvenient to use something other than Microsoft". Forced is usually defined as physical coercion.

Your assertion that Microsoft was the only product on the desktop is also wrong and even if Microsoft provided the only product available, how is that their fault and not the rest of the market for not providing an alternative? Ultimately why do you assert that you have a right to have a choice between similar products? Usually the free market provides choice but if no one is interested in competing or providing your choice of product then what gives you the right to force them?

So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

If I make a deal to stock only Coke products in my grocery store I'd expect a cheaper price from Coke too. Yawn.. you anti-ms trolls are really funny..

Re:So what?

[anyGould]

If I make a deal to stock only Coke products in my grocery store I'd expect a cheaper price from Coke too. Yawn.. you anti-ms trolls are really funny..

You'd be disappointed - Coke generally pays off their folks directly rather than with cheaper prices. (And in universities, they'll put the payoff under NDA so the school's can't compare).

Also, there's a difference between "if you go exclusive with me I'll cut you a deal" and "you'll go exclusive with me or else I'll screw you".

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"you'll go exclusive with me or else I'll screw you".

It was a voluntary business contract with terms favoring the party who had the most leverage. HUGE surprise there.. That never happens !!

Nobody held a gun to anyone's head to sign anything. OEMs wanted to continue making money. Microsoft exploited them. The most mundane event in business history if there ever was one.

Google fanbois are out in full force today..

[Anonymous Coward]

..must defend their BFF Google.. .

I wonder...

[Syberz]

Messages sent only to your address and messages from a source that has sent you many messages in the past get flagged Important automatically.

Before crying "anti-competitive" (which flagging your stuff on a service you provide, isn't), that blogger may want to do some actual investigative work... I'm pretty sure the feature is just working as intended and Google's stuff gets flagged because they know the rules better, not because they put in a line of code that says "IF mail.fromGoogle == TRUE THEN Flag.ThatShitUp"

Then again, investigation takes time and effort and it's much easier to get hits on your site by submitting any " is being evil!" story on Slashdot. It's not like there's fact checking going on before a story gets approved for the front page.

Re:False

[thegarbz]

It doesn't and you're absolutely right.

However the basis that one company is the only choice automatically makes them a monopoly and all their actions subject to scrutiny under laws that govern anti-competitive behavior. Mac distributing Safari with it's operating system would have had zero impact compared to Microsoft distributing Internet Explorer at the time due to the nature of the Microsoft monopoly.

A company doesn't need to have the only product on the market, they can have the only viable product. It's like saying Verizon isn't part of an oligopoly because your next-door neighbour is willing to sell you some dial-up access, simply not a viable option, just as 1998 was definitely not the year of Linux on desktop, and Apple was almost pointless for general purpose computing at the time almost looking like the company (with a share price 1/100th of the current price) was on its last legs.

The key part here is what defines a monopoly. Microsoft was in every way a monopoly in the eyes of the law. Google is a monopoly too, but a lot of people don't realise in what field. Google's ONLY monopoly is in advertisement. As a user you have complete freedom to choose competing and viable alternatives to Google search, to Gmail, and to many other Google products, with alternatives providing identical featuresets. As a company seeking advertising you don't have complete freedom, Google has an 88% marketshare for search in my country making alternatives unviable and making Google an advertising provider monopoly here even when you don't take into account Google's wide spread use of Adsense on the rest of the internet.

Gmail is not a monopoly. Windows was. You can't draw comparisons between the two.

Just more Google smearing

[walterbyrd]

Isn't is obvious by now? All of the sudden there is a flood of alarmist articles about google. And practically of it turns out to be BS. We have seen this sort of thing before, and we all know who is behind it.

Re:Not a big deal

[surgen]

This is what I figured as well, just like google calculates a high pagerank for itself because its huge and popular, the popularity of google's other services probably lead credence to their coupon thing too. Maybe if groupon also ran a popular search engine, video site and online office productivity suite then their coupons would have been considered "priority" mail too.

He?

[Anonymous Coward]

I must object in the most indignant manner to your gender stereotyping. For all we know, the blog author could be a hot chick with big thingees.