Slashdot Mirror
Why Google's Display Ad Business Drew FTC Antitrust Probe
First time accepted submitter jahard writes "It's not clear yet whether the preliminary look will result in anything more. The FTC and the Justice Department don't investigate behemoths like Google on a lark, so there's at least a decent chance they'll find reason to look deeper. But according to several online ad sources, the evidence is mixed, and some–even at least one competitor–say Google is playing fair with its so-called 'stack' of ad technologies. Contacted for comment, Google provided only a terse statement: 'We have not heard anything from the FTC regarding any new antitrust investigation.'"
"we are opening an investigation into your business practices subject to section 123 subsection 456 of the xyz act"
translation:
"your competitors are bigger donors and don't like you!"
Searching for terms like mastercard now shows google's own mastercard comparison site at the start as a sponsored link.
I've seen this on several other search terms too, they're starting to become a content provider rather than a search engine
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
'We have not heard anything from the FTC regarding any new antitrust investigation.'"
Does that mean the investigation was already underway?
Not here. But it's kinda cool, didn't know about that. And that's a fine line between content provider and search engine... content is information, and the result of a search is information too, no?
But I'm a Lisp programmer, so I think data and source code is the same if you put the parentheses in the right places. :D
http://letmebingthatforyou.com/?q=microsoft
They can run their AD business as they please.
Yes they do. And so does the IRS. At this moment in time, once the corruption of one section of government has been demonstrated, they should all be examined. The days of "presumed righteous" government is and should be ended.
The fact is, the nation was founded on the principle that government itself is not above scrutiny and can not and should not be presumed righteous. Why else would the constitution have been written the way it was?
But all these religious minded people with their "faith" want to transfer it all to government as if they are a superior entity and not a colleciton of humans with interests and pursuits of their own. It is completely absurd on its face and yet people are still standing in line.
It's Washington's way of saying "You're not giving enough money to influential congresscritters' campaigns". And, "Nice ad business ya got there. Shame if some legislation happened to it."
I guess they've fixed it already...
I don't see the problem. Why shouldn't they be allowed to advertise in their own products? TV stations advertise shows they'll be broadcasting. Newspapers advertise a phone number you can call to subscribe. Magazines include those annoying little cards you can fill out to subscribe. Movies in the theater and DVD/Bluray include trailers for upcoming movies. The bike I just bought included a little brochure of accessories I can buy.
You could argue that they aren't really paying for their ads since they're just paying themselves to place the self-ad. But they do actually lose money from a self-ad since they're giving up the potential revenue from that advertising space. And all the other self-advertising I described above does the same thing - where's the FTC investigation of those practices?
Um, because they're leveraging their search engine to give preferential placement to their other products (aka leveraging a dominant position in one industry to gain an advantage in another, think of it as Microsoft using their dominant position in the OS market to gain an advantage in the browser market by bundling IE with Windows)?
Whether we're paying them for their service or not is entirely besides the point. Seriously, put your fanboyism aside for a moment and at least TRY to look at this objectively.
I think someone erred and the first line should read something like "Forbes journalists writes..." rather than "jahard writes". Unless of course user jahard is the same person as the Forbes reporter, in which case disregard. But being the penultimate Google "Hater", I figured I'd take the time to spill some of that deserved hate on /., if appropriate.
Their ad is below the other two paid-for credit card ads on the page, so they aren't giving preferential treatment to their ad in that way. Sponsored ads always appear above regular search results, too, so there's nothing preferential about Google's ad being above the search results.
Perhaps YOU should try to look at it objectively.
I've thought for a long time google isn't following the law with regard to how clearly advertisements have to be marked.
A yellow box barely visible on a cheap LCD, and some tiny text "ads" isn't good enough to pass muster under my interpretation of advertising law.
12 months ago this article was published on search engine land:
In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission created guidelines on how search engines should disclose paid placement and paid inclusion listings. It’s become clear to me over the past two weeks that the search engine industry has either largely forgotten these guidelines or is ignoring them. That’s why I’ve written a letter today to the FTC asking that the agency conduct a compliance review, as well as a review to see if its guidelines should be updated. My letter is below.
http://searchengineland.com/a-letter-to-the-ftc-regarding-search-engine-disclosure-124169
That is a problem if they prioritize their own results above legitimate search results and if they effectively blackmail the owners of the search terms into paying to be listed at an appropriately high level. Oh wait, they already do that with adwords and threatening to allow competitors to buy keywords for your own unique business. They keep trying to create gold-rushes and make sure that Google is the only territory in which the gold-rushes occur.
That may, in fact, be inappropriate use of a monopoly. And their purchase of doubleclick and the bundling of their products may in fact constitute such abuse of monopoly powers.
I don't see the problem.
They're representing advertising propaganda (their own and others) as third party information (information supposedly objectively chosen to be useful to the user). That's fraud and the people responsible should be punished.