Google Faces EU Probe Over Doped Search Results 193
Barence writes "The EU has launched an investigation into whether Google is deliberately doctoring its search results to favour its own services. The search giant stands accused of artificially lowering the search ranking of competing price-comparison sites in organic and paid-for search results, in favour of Google Shopping. 'There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial, and the reality that they are increasingly neither,' said Shivaun Raff, CEO of British price comparison site Foundem, which lodged the complaint with the EU. Google has denied any foul play. 'Those sites have complained and even sued us over the years, but in all cases there were compelling reasons why their sites were ranked poorly by our algorithms,' it claims."
Isn't this... (Score:3, Insightful)
...an old story? I'm pretty sure Google is on the line though.
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...yep.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/11/19/234216/Hard-Coded-Bias-In-Google-Search-Results [slashdot.org]
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oh, you mean the SEO/google competition guy who said he found a bias in google's results?
why is this even worth reposting (by slashdot and pcpro)?
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Because it's not a repost. There wasn't a EU probe last time. However, I realize that many people are so in love with Google that they want to keep living in a bubble where all critical Google news is ignored.
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It's amazing Slashdot actually published that bullshit, and it's even sadder that people actually took it at face value.
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Re:Isn't this... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure Google is on the line though.
Yes, I also have a feeling they have a clear conscience. As to the reason their own services are ranked high? Of all, surely Google knows how to optimize their pages for Googles page ranking algorithms!
If they really wanted to "do no evil" they would have a clean room team implement the SEO for their own services using only publicly published information. After all using some secret way to get to the top of the list has the same affect as building in a bias for your site.
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I've never thought "man, there aren't enough content-void link farms in the top 10 results from google!"
Think how many man-hours are wasted all over the globe clicking on that crap.
I want google to remove spam from my web searches just like the remove spam from my email. Evil is not google. Evil is any government that tries to dissuade them from performing that valuable function in the name of "competit
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How are they performing that function by shoving their links into the #1 spot above other links that are known to be more popular? Yahoo Finance is known to be much more popular than Google Finance, so why does Google Finance get a hard-coded spot at the top?
Your defense that they're "removing spam" is bizarre, but what's even more bizarre is that you're criticizing the idea of a government scrutinizing them in the name of fairness and competition. Has everyone forgotten that this site was cheering on the a
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I'm pretty sure Google is on the line though.
Yes, I also have a feeling they have a clear conscience. As to the reason their own services are ranked high? Of all, surely Google knows how to optimize their pages for Googles page ranking algorithms!
If they really wanted to "do no evil" they would have a clean room team implement the SEO for their own services using only publicly published information. After all using some secret way to get to the top of the list has the same affect as building in a bias for your site.
I know most people don't RTFA, but I'd suggest you do... just this once. Let me spell out the highlights for you.
(1) Foundem simply copies much of it's content from other sources. EVERY webmaster worth his keyboard (even if they don't own a 24 year old IBM Model M like me) knows that's a sure-fire way of DECREASING your ranking. I've known that for YEARS.
(2) The other complainant is a French Search Engine... honestly, do you think a relevant listing would be to return a list of other search engines wher
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It appears Google is "gaming" the results.
They are now blocking infowars or prisonplanet.com from appearing in search results (unless you directly request it), and then they suspended that Radio Show's account for two weeks so there will be no more audio or video uploads allowed (to youtube).
Google - the new MSN.
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As to the reason their own services are ranked high? Of all, surely Google knows how to optimize their pages for Googles page ranking algorithms!
You must have missed this article: Hard-coded Bias in Google Search Results [slashdot.org].
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You must have missed that that article is 100% bullshit.
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Put it th other way, why should the article be trusted? Look at the bio of the expert who is quoted and ask yourself if he is independent in this matter?
But the whole complaint was debunked long ago -- Foundem is just a link farm. It has no value the should put it high in Google's ranking.
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But the whole complaint was debunked long ago -- Foundem is just a link farm. It has no value the should put it high in Google's ranking.
That is a bold claim, Foundem has unique content like a price history, user ratings, glossary and the way the "links" (which are actually product and pricing data together with links) are organized and grouped has its value too. People wouldn't visit price comparison sites if they didn't find a compelling reason to. Or, to put it differently, why does "Google Products" (you know, that link farm) even exist if all the linked offers there are just "links" that normal Google search could show as well?
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If I want price comparisons, then I will put "price comparison" in my search terms. I'm sick of all the crap sites like these polluting my results when I'm trying to find genuinely useful information.
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The article gives an objective methodology to determine that Google does indeed hardcode search result links to its own services. Nobody seems to be disputing that here.
Then the article raises the issue that Google dismisses antitrust scrutiny by claiming its algorithms are unbiased, yet that is obviously not true if it is automatically placing its links above other links. Again, nobody here has countered this.
In reality, people here are such huge fans
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The article is complaining about the fact that if you type in goog in the search bar, the first two inches are the top result of google finance, if you type in 1 + 1 you get the result of google calculator, and if you type in an address you get the first google map entry, followed by the search results.
There is no accusation about the search results themselves being doctored.
If you search for goog above of the search results you have links to Google Finance, Yahoo Finance, MSN Money, Daily Finance, CNN Mon
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The article clearly demonstrates that Google has hard-coded its services to appear in the #1 spot for certain search terms. It even cites a quote from a Google employee admitting that this occurs for Google Finance. The article also raises the issue of Google dismissing antitrust scrutiny by claiming its algorithms are unbiased.
You offer zero refutations to any this. The article isn't "100% bullshit" whatsoever.
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It's easy to do when you're Google and can hard-code your services to appear as the #1 links for specific search terms, above links that are known to be more popular.
The problem is that Google dismisses antitrust scrutiny by claiming its algorithms are unbiased. If this was Microsoft, the tone of these Slashdot comments would be almost completely opposite, but because its Google, you'll see a lot of mealy-mouthed defense of their behavior.
I shop online all the time (Score:5, Informative)
I shop online all of the time. I've never heard of this "foundem". Furthermore, the last two paragraphs are pretty telling:
Addressing Foundem's allegations specifically, Google said: "We built Google for users, not websites, and the nature of ranking is that some websites will be unhappy with where they rank. Those sites have complained and even sued us over the years, but in all cases there were compelling reasons why their sites were ranked poorly by our algorithms.
"For example, Foundem, one of the sites that has complained publicly and to the European Commission, duplicates 79% of its website content from other sites, and we have consistently informed webmasters that our algorithms disadvantage duplicate sites."
You're not ranked high because you're not relevant to the users' interest. 'Nuff said.
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You're not ranked high because you're not relevant to the users' interest. 'Nuff said.
And who gets to decide that, the competition or a neutral party?
Re:I shop online all the time (Score:4, Insightful)
And who gets to decide that, the competition or a neutral party?
A few billion neutral third parties have said that they like Google's appraisal just fine. If their results weren't so in line with what people want and expect, users would have gone with a different search engine.
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Except - there aren't a few billion neutral third parties. There's a few billion people swayed by the opinions of their acquaintances, by endless links to Google searches, etc... etc... Marketing is a powerful tool, doubly so when it's grassroots and the company being marketed maintains such a populist image that many people literally believe they can do
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We're all using Google because it was shoved down our throats and we have no idea there are other options out there.
First, as tycoex mentions, Bing is the default search on a popular browser or two. Second, that ignorance is squarely on the shoulders of the other search companies who've failed to advertise. It's not Google's fault that Ask.com did a poor job of building brand awareness. And do you really mean that Microsoft is incapable of financing an ad campaign for Bing? (Whether it would be effective is another story, but the point is that they could try to make Bing popular if they really wanted to.)
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The slashdot "we" who implicitly know about other search engines?
The facebook/IM "we" who can transmit news of how well a search engine works instantaneously to other users?
The grandma "we" who just accepts what her grandson set up?
Your bullshit argument is that google got where they are by being good, but now they're abusing their position. Personally, I think you're confusing google with Microsoft, but if you could show, you know, some evidence that is more compell
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It's not just that. For example, one of the complainants was ciao.co.uk, a Microsoft subsidiary which is integrated into Bing search results in exactly the same fashion as Google Shopping is into Google search results. Except that they did a rather worse job of it than Google.
Compare: Google [google.co.uk] versus Bing [bing.com]. If you click one of the product links in the Google search, you get a nice clean list [google.co.uk] of who sells that product and at what price. Do the same in Bing, and you get something rather less pleasant [ciao.co.uk]. The search
A really better search engine would beat Google (Score:2)
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And who gets to decide that, the competition or a neutral party?
A few billion neutral third parties have said that they like Google's appraisal just fine. If their results weren't so in line with what people want and expect, users would have gone with a different search engine.
That's the way things used to work, but not anymore. In the past, you had to go out and find a search engine. I remember we'd type in hotbot.com or Lycos, or AltaVista, and whatever else we could find and just see which one gave us more of what we were looking for. And at some point, Google was good enough that it became popular like this. But now that they've become dominant, they want to make sure nobody else wins the same way Google did. We are past the time where people go out and find their search engine. We are at a time where Google pays to be included in your web browser, on your desktop, in your phone, and in your workplace. Nobody even asks how to find what they're looking for, or ever gets given a list of addresses for search engines. And no, a dropdown list that nobody is aware of does not count as being given a list of search engine addresses.
To summarize, we're not all using Google because we evaluated all of our options and found them to be the best. We're all using Google because it was shoved down our throats and we have no idea there are other options out there.
Ummm... wake up and visit the Internet. Really. Most people run Windows. Most people use Idiotic Explorer. Most people's default search engine is (or suggested as) BING (since most people use Idiotic Explorer)! Most people STILL end up using Google regardless. And that's not even taking into account that many IE typos, mistakes, URL bar entries or uses of Yahoo (and other sites) actually counts towards Bing usage. Yet still, with not just that choice, but the fact that Bing is pushed on to a bunch of people
Re:I shop online all the time (Score:4, Insightful)
As Mike Muir once sang while with Infectious Grooves ..... "I hate stupid people!"
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You're not ranked high because you're not relevant to the users' interest. 'Nuff said.
Read this first: Foundem's Google story [searchneutrality.org] - by the way, I had to use Yahoo to get this link (first hit for "google foundem story", nowhere in sight when using Google).
Regarding the duplicated content excuse Google is using: Foundem certainly contains product listings from other sites, but heavily modified (just like any price comparison site) and presented in a way that makes them differ enough, just like (or even more than) most news sites copying reuters press releases or blogs linking to other articles.
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Read this first: Foundem's Google story - by the way, I had to use Yahoo to get this link (first hit for "google foundem story", nowhere in sight when using Google).
That's an interesting spin, but actually the fact that Google do this to "vertical search" sites, "product comparison" sites and other such scum is part of the reason I like them. Back in the bad old days, when search engines were less useful, it was really frustrating to do a search and get back a bunch of links to search engines and aggregators of dubious quality, which you then had to go through in the vain hope that one of them had an actual link to a real site. I don't miss it.
In fact, my main complain
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Foundem have an interesting business model in general. It seems to revolve around Google failing at their core competency of internet search, and that feels like a really bad bet to me.
Most major price comparison sites are older than Google and much older than Google's attempts to enter that market. Their aim is not to provide general search results in niches where Google sucks, but specifically to provide a good shopping/price research experience, just as on a hotel booking site the user will see different information, presented in a different way than by searching Google. Theoretically, in the long run Google could identify such searches (or train users to search differently) and prese
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You have not heard of Foundem because the MAN (Google in this case) keeps them DOWN. No other reason.
European Courts (Score:2)
Oh, please, your ignorance is greater than mere words can describe. If you're an American your nationalist propaganda brainwashing has worked. Despite your own conceited beliefs the US is not an epitome of justice.
Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that the EU and its institutions takes complaints and prosecutes, naturally, primarily European companies, ignorant people such as yourself that have no knowledge of the relevant history, law or geopolitics, wax eternally on about the few instances of Am
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This shouldn't even be an issue. Is there a law that says search engines must be impartial? This is their company and their algorithm. Who the fuck has the right to tell them if they want to optimize it to make all websites with the word google in them go up in rank?
If their search results stop giving useful and valid results someone else will build a new and better search engine. See the history of search engines as a reference.
Google is not a public utility, they are a for profit company.
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Foundem, one of the sites that has complained publicly and to the European Commission, duplicates 79% of its website content from other sites
Interesting to read this from entity like Google that copies or 'generates' like 90% of its content from other sites.
Ah yes, but when you search for "xyz widget", you don't get a hit to Google's search page for "xyz widget" - that would of course be recursively redundant and pointless, but my point is that the only time you'll get Google's own stuff on search results is when it actually is non-duplicate data they're showing.
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It's a legal principle. You can't complain about someone else doing the same thing you're doing. It's called unclean hands and is a legitimate defense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unclean_hands [wikipedia.org]
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Was bound to happen (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure who's side I'm on this time. I mean, it'd be stupid if (say) you google something on Bing and you don't get the Microsoft solution first. I think it'd be weird if you look up "Shopping" and google shopping is at the bottom.
Re:Was bound to happen (Score:4, Insightful)
I find your phrase 'google something on Bing' highly amusing - and very revealing of the actual market situation ; )
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Try binging on Google sometimes.
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That sounds painful.
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>>>it'd be stupid if (say) you search something on Bing, and you don't get the Microsoft solution first
What search alternatives exist to the near-monopoly Google and Microsoft's Bing?
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Hm - I'm getting tired of how the word 'Monopoly' is (ab)used sometimes:
Majority != Monopoly.
Best Product != Monopoly.
Most Used != Monopoly.
And to answer your question: Yahoo, Windows Live and Baidu are within the world's top ten most-visited websites.
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>>>Majority != Monopoly.
I said "near" monopoly and 80% or higher certainly qualifies. In the U.S. 80% is high enough to amend the highest law of the land - the constitution. 80% was high enough to break-up Standard Oil and ATT.
Anyway I'm sold - http://blekko.com/ws/+/press-videos?h=1 [blekko.com]
I used to use metacrawler which was once a decent engine
"Windows Live" is different from Bing?
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If people look for simple terms, no matter the search algorithm, their results are highly likely to come up on top. I don't know many people that would use the word "messenger" natively for a c
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That has to be one of the oddest definition of 'not cheating' I've ever heard. Using insider information is, almost universally, regarded as unfair competition if not cheating.
Hope Google wins, for the sake of useful results. (Score:5, Insightful)
I really hope Google wins this one. Google search results are spammed with enough useless "price comparison" and "vertical search" sites as it is, their results really don't need any more - especially not forced upon them by Google. It's reached the point where it's very difficult to find actual reviews for certain products or sites selling them via Googling already, because the "vertical search" sites don't care about actually providing good information. (If you read Google's response [bbc.co.uk], the reason the company complaining got automatically downranked is because nearly all their content was duplicated - like many such sites, they offered absolutely nothing useful and were just sponging off their ability to draw people in by getting as high in the Google results as possible.)
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Forced upon them by the EU, even.
Re:Hope Google wins, for the sake of useful result (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed - these price-comparison sites are almost universally leeches. They provide no added content, the contents are often out-of-date, and you can get the same functionality by just clicking on individual links in Google. I wish they would all go away. That said, I have never seen Google shopping come up in the results of a search for a product. I am always skipping over spammed results from other price comparison sites - not to mention eBay (I hate eBay). If Google is cheating, they surely are doing a lousy job of it :-)
According to one article, Foundem is a case study in SEO fail [econsultancy.com]. Perhaps it's easier to sue than to fix your business concept.
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Agreed - these price-comparison sites are almost universally leeches. They provide no added content, the contents are often out-of-date, and you can get the same functionality by just clicking on individual links in Google.
There are some useful ones: e.g. car insurance, electricity and ISP comparison sites. However, they generally spend a lot of money on advertising, so you go to them direct. They aren't lame sites that think Google owes them a living.
I actually WISH Google did this (Score:2)
As an avid user of Google Shopper (http://froogle.google.com), I honestly wish Google integrated it's results into searches for products. Being able to price compare *and* read reviews on one single page of results would be excellent.
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Foundem is a case study in SEO fail
Sorry to say, but that article was written by a clueless moron who just argues that any price comparison site must fail at SEO, which a) is obviously wrong and b) would mean that Google Products would also never warrant a top position since all its content is as problematic as the author wants to make us believe Foundem's is.
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Sorry to say, but that article was written by a clueless moron who just argues that any price comparison site must fail at SEO, which a) is obviously wrong and b) would mean that Google Products would also never warrant a top position since all its content is as problematic as the author wants to make us believe Foundem's is.
Google Products is actually much better. Compare this Foundem search [foundem.co.uk] and the per-product pages [foundem.co.uk] with Google Product [google.co.uk] and its per-product pages [google.co.uk]. The Google pages offer more useful information up-front, avoid redundant duplication, and are generally better designed.
Even this probably wouldn't warrant a top position for Google Products on most searches, and it doesn't generally get one. What Google does is use it to supplement its search results - if you make a search where Google thinks the Products search resu [google.co.uk]
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Google Products is actually much better. Compare this Foundem search and the per-product pages with Google Product and its per-product pages. The Google pages offer more useful information up-front, avoid redundant duplication, and are generally better designed.
Your Google link didn't work. Yes, the product info on Google is better, but Foundem has a) better result filtering, b) a more user-oriented default sorting by price (Google sorts by "Relevance", which is silly on a per-product page and reeks of favoritism i.e. paid results first), c) pounds and not USD like Google, d) a price history, e) merchants from the UK as expected from a .co.uk site while Google has US merchants
It's no wonder that Bing and ciao.co.uk have a much smaller marketshare than Google - they're useless.
I would have no issues with it if I could believe that to be the reason, but with the f
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Your Google link didn't work. Yes, the product info on Google is better, but Foundem has a) better result filtering,
Yeah, it's interesting that Google hasn't enabled its support for narrowing down your selection on that page. On some of the other Google Products pages I've looked at, the results-narrowing feature is better than on many actual shopping sites. (I'm guessing there aren't enough distinct results for them to bother or something.)
b) a more user-oriented default sorting by price (Google sorts by "Relevance", which is silly on a per-product page and reeks of favoritism i.e. paid results first),
That actually struck me as quite clever. The first results on Google by relevance are from sellers like Dabs and Amazon, which have a very good reputation over here. On the other hand
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The first results on Google by relevance are from sellers like Dabs and Amazon, which have a very good reputation over here. On the other hand, the top Foundem results include companies I'd be reluctant to do business with. No idea how Google managed that.
Amazon will be paying through the associates program, whether dabs is paying or not I don't know, but it seems likely. The question is, does it say anywhere on Google that those companies are "relevant" because they are known to be more reputable, or does it say nothing because there are factors involved that would not seem to be objective?
Something odd must be going on for you.
I just clicked on your links. I am not located in the UK though (and not in the US either).
Yawn (Score:4, Insightful)
"There is a growing chasm between the enduring public perception of Google's search results as comprehensive and impartial...
Impartiality Checklist
[ ] Do they make money doing it?
[ ] Do they support a political candidate, viewpoint, or party?
[ ] Is what they're doing taxable?
[ ] Do they claim to know the truth, as opposed to still searching for it?
Note: If you checked any of the boxes, you can be certain they are not impartial.
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In all fairness, Google does make money by prioritizing their shopping site over other comparison sites. While they don't have AdSense on the shopping site, it does enhance brand.
Usually, I get the google comparison as the third "non-paid" result. That is about right most of the time. Sure beats getting Nextag or Ebay results, although I do sometimes miss the more obscure ones.
Sites that don't add value shouldn't be ranked highly. That added value might be subjective and have various conflicts of intere
I want to move to the EU (Score:2)
Anti-corporation sounds like a sound government policy to me. Or is it just anti-american corporations (microsoft, oracle, google) and pro-europe (opera). Hard to tell?
Now if the EU can just stop the Euro from collapsing, it would be pretty close to paradise. "Where liberty lives, there is my country." - Ben Franklin
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EEA - Of No Consequence (Score:2)
Yes, Norway is a part of the European Economic Area, the inner market of the EU, due to the Free Trade Agreement between our nations. However we are very much not members of the EU, strongly opposed in fact, and we have no influence, representation, power or voting rights. We also pay dearly for access to the EU's market to the number of millions of Euros each year.
The fact that Opera and Mozilla's complaints were taken into consideration was purely a matter of law.
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Most of such investigations, fines levied, etc. are against European companies...
And from the looks of this one, they simply have to start an investigation when receiving a proper formal compliant. It might very well not go anywhere afterwards.
American Hypocrisy (Score:2)
Yes, it's much better to bail out the HUGE banks and financial institutions that screwed up your financial system in the first place. Nevermind the 200 minor American banks that have had to close...
impartial? (Score:2)
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What does Bing do?
Waah (Score:2)
I'm all in favor of impartial media, but is there some law in the EU that requires search engines to show impartial rankings?
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Nope. But it could be seen as anticompetitive. There doesn't have to be a specific written law against everything imaginable - a lot of laws are generic enough that they can be extended by case law etc. to actually incorporate lots of "new" things.
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European Consumer Protections (Score:2)
With Great Power Comes Great Responsiblity.
The key complaint is that Google has now become so powerful and leading that consumers believe and trust it. The reality is that Google now has such a huge impact that it is starting to effect markets, and businesses, as such it is in the interest of European consumers that the company be regulated.
We have a number of consumer protection laws that most Americans have not heard of, such as requiring that all products sold with subscriptions must include the full and
As always, follow the money... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/7301299/Google-under-investigation-for-alleged-breach-of-EU-competition-rules.html [telegraph.co.uk]
This is just more of the same from Microsoft when trying to compete.
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That's a pretty weak link. I belong to an organization that Microsoft gives money to as well. It's called IEEE. Does that mean I shouldn't use IEEE-1000?
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[...] now, it's still not)... apk
You're an idiot. I'm not even going to start in on all the reasons you are completely wrong.
The part in bold is the only one you need to know.
Likely outcome (Score:3, Informative)
2) End users aren't bothered by this in the least, and Google profits go up another notch.
.
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I'm not sure if Google can be thought to have monopoly on search markets, and I'm too lazy to read about the case, but if EU thinks so the rules will change. Just like Microsoft was forced to provide browser choice dialog with Windows although one would presume that Windows comes with Internet Explorer.
Web directories (Score:3, Interesting)
.
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I agree. I still like dmoz.
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It's a pity web directories such as the Open Directory Project have fallen by the wayside in the mind of the general public.
Have you ever tried to get a site with, say, 1 million page views monthly (it's not much, but more than many sites listed there), listed on dmoz? The maintainers seem to have gone in hibernation mode mostly, you can wait for months for any kind of reply. No wonder it's all outdated / useless info ...
page rank of *.google.com (Score:2)
You'd think the page rank of and *.google.com domain would have a pretty good page rank. Lots of links to it.
are search rankings standardized? (Score:2)
So what exactly is wrong with this? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why wouldn't Google push their own products to the front of search results? Are they barred from doing what we would expect from every other company in the world to do? Why is this investigated? Why does anyone consider this illegal, amoral, or wrong in any way? They can't promote their own products on their own website - Why the hell not?
They are not a nonprofit impartialsearch.org, they're not the government shoving this down our throats, they're a large corporation that is completely optional to use. There is no reason to expect their own products not to be first in every related search. There are Google logos on every page - it's not deceptive, you know who is providing this information. There is nothing illegal or wrong about this in any way, shape or form. It's companies with crappy products that lose money politicking/suing Google because they have money - That is the total sum of these stories. There's no rights violations, illegal activities or sketchy dealings here, just unmitigated greed and a failed political/legal system.
If Google didn't do this, if you searched for "Email" on Google and the first result was Hotmail, everyone would think they're complete idiots - employees, users, advertisers and competitors.
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Steve Jobs: "Damn! I ~knew~ we should have called our company 'Gapple' !"
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Steve Jobs: "Damn! I ~knew~ we should have called our company 'Gapple' !"
"It's an apple infused with Gallium" [xkcd.com]
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Its like saying you providing top 10 song rankings, and you put bands which have a contract with your company first always.
I can't think of a car analogy.
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What is wrong with that? It's my company, my list, and my algorithm / opinion. If you don't like it, start your own search engine company and compete.
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The point isn't that you can't choose your algorithm, is that you can't _claim_ all your results follow certain algorithm when in fact they don't. That would be fraudulent.
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With blackjack! And hookers! In fact, forget the search engine!
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One it sets a standard. What's to stop [otherSearchEngine] to not put [otherSearchEngine]shopping first? You'll arrive at the point where (to continue your analogy) - all the media houses have their own top 10 list, dominated by their own songs.
Secondly, Google is the biggest and most popular - so any plan which involves "People are free to not use it" will fail miserably.
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Fucking bastards. Running and opinion site where we go to get their opinion on where the information we seek is. I for one think that the EU needs to come down hard on Google and force them to have the Governments opi
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Depends. If you claim they're the top-10 most downloaded music overall and it isn't, it's essentially fraud.
Car analogy: just because there are multiple car sellers, you can't sell a V6 and claim it's a V8.
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Help me understand here - Is not this like saying, If I provide top10 song rankings and I put Spice girls song at no.2. EU does not like that and sues me to put her song at no 1.
No with 'foundem' its more like the top ten ranking included lots of well-known artists but not a recording your sister made at some backstreet recording studio that she sells round the neighbourhood. You complain to the EU who sues google to have your sister's video put in the top ten.
(If you are the brother of one of the Spice Girls please ignore this comment)
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Actually, it's more like saying "I've compiled a listing of what other people on the Internet (who themselves are often respected by visitors for being "relevant" to musical top 10) think should be in the Top 10" and then being told off because one of your own songs is in that list.
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No. I have my own listing of lists of top 10 songs, and I want you to put that at no.1 rather than an actual song.
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1. The majority don't care
2. The majority are stupid
3. The few people who care, don't matter numerical-wise
4. Biggest companies set the standard
5. People are used to [large company]
6. If you don't use [large company] - you will get flak when something goes wrong.
See also: Microsoft, IE6, Windows Vista...