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FTC Demands Search Engines Separate Paid Advertisements From Search Results
An anonymous reader notes that the FTC has sent letters to search engine companies (PDF) telling them to make sure advertisements are clearly distinguishable from search results.
"According to both the FTC staff's original search engine guidance and the updated guidance, failing to clearly and prominently distinguish advertising from natural search results could be a deceptive practice. The updated guidance emphasizes the need for visual cues, labels, or other techniques to effectively distinguish advertisements, in order to avoid misleading consumers, and it makes recommendations for ensuring that disclosures commonly used to identify advertising are noticeable and understandable to consumers. The letters note that the principles of the original guidance still apply, even as search and the business of search continue to evolve. The letters observe that social media, mobile apps, voice assistants on mobile devices, and specialized search results that are integrated into general search results offer consumers new ways of getting information. The guidance advises that regardless of the precise form that search takes now or in the future, paid search results and other forms of advertising should be clearly distinguishable from natural search results."
Regulating advertising is a function of the FTC.
Just because you are not paying is no reason why advertising should be represented as anything else.
not just search engine results, but identify them from even a website's local content. how many times have you gone to a site to download a file and had to figure out which button was the real download button?
You mean setting the advertisement background color to #fefefe instead of #ffffff isn't good enough for the Feds?
By showing ads. That does not mean they are allowed to lie about results.
The last thing I want is advertising I cannot distinguish from real results.
Why is thre a need to do this.. What does it matter?
Deception. The FTC is saying you can't make a paid-for ad look like a legitimate search result, because it's deceptive and unfair to both the consumer and other legitimate businesses who don't have the resources to pay Google boo-koo bucks for prime ad space. Not saying it's right or wrong, just pointing out the rationale.
As part of captialism if people get tired of getting the advertisements they will go to another search engine.
Ah, no, actually, that's a function of the free market, not capitalism in general, and as it should be abundantly clear at this point, there is not and never has been such a thing as a free market (that's not necessarily bad, BTW).
There is no reason for this.
Sure there is! It might not be a good one, or one you agree with, but there is a reason. There's always a reason.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Right. Google Shopping was originally a price comparison service. There was no charge for being listed. Then it was changed to an paid ad service. All the links on it changed to Google ad links. Our Ad Limiter browser add-on, which hides all but one Google ad per search result, then started limiting the number of shopping results displayed. We finally allowed more ads to show through on explicit Google shopping pages.
Now, Google Shopping results have changed again, so that they look like real search results. They even have additional Google ads, with the light tan background. But in reality, every result on a Google Shopping page is a paid ad.
Actually, it's EXACTLY what you said. Your argument is akin to "if people get tired of watching commercials, they'll just tune to TV stations that don't show commercials" -- in other words, complete bullshit.
I say make them use the BLINK tag.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Google and other ads are specifically designed to look like search results and exploit the fact that older people cannot see contrast of the background as well as younger people. Or even younger people using bad quality or badly calibrated monitors. (Or using Flux).
The contrast on the background is much lower than the federal 508 standard for contrast and I think has changed to over the years to a lighter shade as Google "optimizes" it.
http://i.imgur.com/Wmdd0.png
One is an ad and one is a search result, is there much difference? Given the average quality of monitors, I think those are designed to fool even otherwise sharp eyes.
There is a border on the right of the ads but none on at the bottom. Google must be getting tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue from the color change from blue to yellow, the ones shown in the example are about $50 to $100 for each click.
http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-it
http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentionally-trying-to-minimize-the-fact-that-these-are-ads/
Guess they employ many behavioral psychologist super PHDs who tweaked the carefully and scientifically calibrated colors on ads and removed all contrast including borders to make many folks not realize where the ads end and the actual results begin. Forget about people going to paid websites and screwing websites that don't charge users that rank well organically because they're good and popular but don't give the Googolplex any money.
"Study:Contrast sensitivity gradually decreases with age"
http://www.eyeworld.org/article.php?sid=818&strict=0&morphologic=0
This space for rent.
No one is twisting Google's arme either, they're free to take their business elsewhere if the climate or price of doing business gets too high for their tastes.
A government is free to set whatever rules it wants for doing business within their jurisdiction, you have as a business you can either choose to comply or choose not to do business there, noone is twisting your arm or forcing you to do anything.
There needs to be a separation because showing paid for results as matched search results is deceptive.
Google and other ads are specifically designed to look like search results and exploit the fact that older people cannot see contrast of the background as well as younger people. Or even younger people using bad quality or badly calibrated monitors
I was reading their corporate motto "Do no evil" on their site, and then I saw your post and upped the contrast on my monitor and then saw the entire text that was hidden earlier, "Do no evil - except when it makes us money. In that case, be very very evil." !
You and the FTC must really be on to be something here!!!
This space for rent.
I actually think that, when it comes to regulating Internet or media companies, nothing could be more important than this.
This is the ultimate line in the sand for an advertising company (or a consumer of ads). I'm generally a defender of Google, but if they were to cross this line then - for the first time - I would think they have truly become the evil that they disavowed in their inception.
And this is about the Internet in general. We need to know whether content is paid or not if we are to preserve a space for the the unpaid. Otherwise, the paid opinion will always win out since it has the money to promote itself.
Google already does this... if you search for a product the first results you get are "Ads related to {Your Search Terms}" There are usually two or three online retailers followed by local retailers and google map showing those local retailers. Scroll past that and you get the actual search results and text ads on the right of each result page. Yahoo and Bing try to do the same thing {bing doesn't show a map} and duckduckgo has it's ads in a different color and they say "Sponsored Link" next to them.
{I don't actually use yahoo, bing, or duckduckgo but had to look and see how they were laid out}
Not sure how any other search engines are laid out but figure those are the four I hear the most about. I figure for public relations and to keep traffic the top search engines will do this anyway.
Google never indicated, to me at least, what was in the search results. I don't see how it could be deceptive.
And even if it was, does that matter, since I don't pay Google one red cent for the service?
Perhaps this will make Google results more useful. I'm rather fed up with doing a search and getting all this garbage up front which has nothing to do with the search, but tries to lure me to some business or review site. Ever notice how Urban Spoon and Yelp show up first, even when the site you are looking for has their own website?
Long-time users of Google may agree here, the results are becoming less useful as time goes by, obviously because paid or revenue producing pages are promoted over utility.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
So there is no space between "no regulation" and "nanny state"? That's what you imply here, and that is how just about every regulation "debate" turns out these days.
Google already does this... if you search for a product the first results you get are "Ads related to {Your Search Terms}" There are usually two or three online retailers followed by local retailers and google map showing those local retailers.
Actually the FTC letter is much clearer on this than the summary. (Hey, its Slashdot, what else is new?)
The FTC letter addresses PAID search results. (As well as the super-set of paid search results that are PROMOTED search results).
These must be distinguished from hits on the text of the page. The net result is that if your company is a Google advertiser (adwords for example) and one of the hits shown brings up your Adwords link it must be clearly delineated from the list of hits that just trigger based on the content of the page.
Even if both are present, only the paid advertising must be so marked.
And I agree, Google does a pretty good job of making the distinction, both on the desktop and on mobile devices.
Bing: Not so much.
For instance, I searched a random thing: Peach Trees.
I used both Bing and Google. Google clearly showed what was paid advertising.
With Bing, I was never really sure, other than one result is always promoted to the top with an option to "only show results from".
I'm left guessing if ANY results are paid or not.
Try it again, using any random make of car, say Ford Mustang or Toyota Prius.
Google clearly differentiates the Paid ads.
Bing does not.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If you read the letter they sent to US based search engines you will find they are only talking about FTC Act Section 5 which I believe is codified in 15 USC 45(a). http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45
If you read that section of the law you will find that it mostly just applies to US businesses.
Do you have any actual evidence that the FTC is trying to assert authority over a non-US based business that runs a search engine?
Nice custom crop job.
You deliberately cut off the top indicator that stated "Ads Related to [search term] which has an info circle.
Why should I read anything you post when you go out of your way to custom crop what Google puts on the page?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Are you paid to post crap about Google?
Notice your screenshot is trimmed down to hide the word "Ads" from the top right. You might say it us not prevalent enough and have a point but by photoshopping your screenshot you also edited away your credibility.
I dont read