I have included a discussion of Google and the antitrust hearing below.
By way of background, Google was created in 1998 by its founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. When it started out, Google's only business was a search engine which had an algorithm which sorted websites according to their relevance to search terms entered. The search engine is still alive and well today, and the algorithm has become a lot more sophisticated. However in 2011 the search engine is only one part of the Google empire.
Google now owns a large amount of good and service providers on the Internet. It is these businesses which competitors are saying receive preferential treatment in Google's search engine. An example of the extent of ownership of businesses by Google in 2008 is set out in a blog article by Asher Richard (http://asher.searchwarp.com/swa300671.htm):
Deja.comThere were several parties who gave evidence of Google's alleged improper conduct, including the CEOs of Nextag (a price comparison business) and Yelp (a review business). For instance, the CEO of Nextag (Jeffrey Katz) said the following:
Pyra Labs-Blogger
Neotonic Software-for CRM
Applied Semantics-for search
Kaltix Corp-for context sensitve search
Genius Labs-for blogging
Ignite Logic-web templates for law firms
Picassa-digi photo management
Keyhole Group-digital mapping
Where 2 Technologies-digital mapping
ZipDash-maps and traffic for mobile devices
2Web Technologies-spreadsheets
Urchin-metrics/analytics
Dodgeball-mobile social networking
Reqwireless Inc.-Java browser
Current Communications Group-broadband internet
Android-software for mobile phone o/s
Transformic Inc-search engine for deep/invisible web
Skia-graphics software engineering
DMarc Broadcasting-digital radio broadcasting
Measure Map-analytics for blogs
Upstartle-Writely, document editor for the web
@Last Software-SketchUp 3D modeling
Orion-Referral search engine
Neven Vision-automatic information extraction from jpgs
Jotspot Ind-wiki platform for websites
YouTube-online video company
Endoxen-geomapping software
Xunlei-filesharing app for the web
Adscape Media-in-game advertising
Gapminder's Trendalyzer-presentation software
Doubleclick-ad platform for the web
Tonic Systems-document conversion technology
Marratech-video conferencing technology
Green Border Technologies-secure web browsing tech
Panoramio-photo site sharing for Google Earth
Feedbumer-RSS feed distribution analytics and management
GrandCentral-mobile voice management
Postini-communications security and compliance
Today, Google doesn’t play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favour of Google Shopping and against competitors like us. Google says that competition is just one click away, but that’s not even the question. The question is, should Google be able to use its market power to make it difficult for users to find us?The CEO of Yelp (Jeremy Stoppelman) claimed that after partnering with Google, Yelp terminated the arrangement and discovered that Google was using Yelp's content anyway. Stoppelman also said that Google also prioritised its own reviews over Yelp's reviews (which were allegedly drawn from Yelp).
Google's ex CEO (from 2001 to 2011) Eric Schmidt was questioned by the subcommittee. Some interesting allegations put to Schmidt include:
- When shoppers use search terms for price comparison websites, Google's own price comparison business continually ranks third, whereas its competitors have varied search success. Schmidt denied this.
- Google has been and is still using restaurant reviews from a competitor, Yelp, to populate it's own restaurant review business. Schmidt said as far as he was aware this was not happening.
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