Times Article: 13-07-2007
A recent article in the Times highlights some interesting information re sponsored links.
The general outline is included below:
From The Times
July 13, 2007
Google in court for
Bernard Lagan in Sydney and Rhys Blakely
Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, is being taken to court for allegedly deceiving millions of users over links that are paid for by its advertisers.
In the first legal action of its kind, Australia's competition watchdog is seeking an injunction to stop Google from displaying search results that did not
The Australian Competion and Consumer Commission claims that Google has engaged in deceptive or misleading conduct in relation to the use of its paid links. It also seeks an injunction to prevent Google from displaying the paid links of advertisers that claimed an association with other businesses or competitors where no such association existed.
Google said that the claims are
EXPERT VIEW
"If the courts rule Google needs to be a pro-active policeman instead of a reactive philosopher the world of the web could be radically changed"
Rhys Blakely
But the legal dispute has prompted fears of a wave of similar challenges in other countries that will test the advertising methods used by Google and other internet companies.
Revenue from sponsored links have helped to propel Google's stock market value to $169 billion (£83 billion) since it was started in a Silicon Valley garage by two university students 8½ years ago.
At the heart of the dispute is the way in which Google displays the results of searches. Advertisers are clearly identified at the top of each page and in the right-hand column. But those same advertisers are likely to feature in the main search results, where they are not identified as sponsors. This, the Australian watchdog claims, constitutes an unfair trading practice.
The legal action has surprised the IT sector. Even in Australia, IT companies believed that the dispute over internet advertisers had been resolved by the Federal Trade Commission, the US regulator, as long ago as 2001.
The commission ruled that paid search results could be displayed to search engine users so long as they were clearly labelled as
John Butterworth, head of the Australian Interactive Media Industry, said last night:
The legal action arises from a separate investigation by the Australian competition watchdog, which started in 2005, after two car dealerships complained that potential customers who used Google to look them up were being first offered a link to a newspaper that carried used-car advertisements. The newspaper had paid Google for the right to use the names of the motor vehicle dealerships in its sponsored links, thus drawing people searching for the dealerships to the newspaper site. The newspaper was in competition with the motor vehicle dealerships for used-car buyers.
The threat to Google is that the courts will rule that it has a responsibility to police such behaviour. Google sells millions of keywords every day. Regulating auctions to make sure that bidders own any trade-marks they are trying to buy would be complicated.
The real risk is that similar rules would spill over into other parts of Google's business, to make the company responsible for all search results, not just the sponsored ones.
The group is involved in a legal battle involving YouTube. After buying the world’s largest video-sharing site for $1.65 billion last year, Google was served with a $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom, the media giant behind MTV, which alleged that Google was not doing enough to prevent the appearance of bootlegged clips.
If the courts agree with Viacom and Australia's car dealers that Google needs to be a policeman, the internet could be seriously affected.
MORE CLIX COMMENTS - Unfair to blame Google?
An excellent article. One can hardly blame Google that opportunist clients will use 'pay per click' campaigns targeted so they appear on the same page as their corporate competition. As more and more people are getting lazy and using the Google search bar to find a particular company's website they wish to visit e.g. typing in 'Hertz car hire' to find the Hertz website, rival local companies are using 'Hertz car hire' as their adwords so they appear in sponsored links on the same Google results page, no doubt hoping that their prices will appear more competitive and enquirers may click on their links.
One can argue about the ethics of this, but how or why should Google have to police and decide on the prohibitions that should be imposed.
As to why 'pay per click' advertisers also appear on the main page as well as in the sponsored links, isn't this just because of their good website optimisation? I'm sure it is in many cases, but would it be wrong to assume that Google may also (cunningly?) intervene so the search results it presents are 'customer relevant' to the key words typed in - so results do not simply become sourced to other displayed 'index list' websites that have signed up businesses from similar business sectors and mainly achieve high search rankings simply because of the high number of the reverse links to their own website.
Personally, I find these 'index' sites quite annoying as it seems you are often just repeating the Google search you have already made on the 'index' sites search facilities(usually unsophisticated facilities) and returning results that are usually not relevant.
The bottom line is that while some control in the sector could be productive, the bottom line is that Google needs to continually revise how it works in order to maintain its market sector i.e. satisfy the public the customers it serves. So far, in this Google has proved and is continuing to prove very adept.
Perhaps we should just let the market place decide.
The general outline is included below:
From The Times
July 13, 2007
Google in court for
misleading its userson paid links to advertisers
Bernard Lagan in Sydney and Rhys Blakely
Google, the world's most popular internet search engine, is being taken to court for allegedly deceiving millions of users over links that are paid for by its advertisers.
In the first legal action of its kind, Australia's competition watchdog is seeking an injunction to stop Google from displaying search results that did not
expressly distinguishadvertisements.
The Australian Competion and Consumer Commission claims that Google has engaged in deceptive or misleading conduct in relation to the use of its paid links. It also seeks an injunction to prevent Google from displaying the paid links of advertisers that claimed an association with other businesses or competitors where no such association existed.
Google said that the claims are
without meritand that it
would vigorously defend the court action. Google said the action was an attack on all search engines and the Australian businesses, large and small, who use them to connect with customers throughout the world.
EXPERT VIEW
"If the courts rule Google needs to be a pro-active policeman instead of a reactive philosopher the world of the web could be radically changed"Rhys Blakely
But the legal dispute has prompted fears of a wave of similar challenges in other countries that will test the advertising methods used by Google and other internet companies.
Revenue from sponsored links have helped to propel Google's stock market value to $169 billion (£83 billion) since it was started in a Silicon Valley garage by two university students 8½ years ago.
At the heart of the dispute is the way in which Google displays the results of searches. Advertisers are clearly identified at the top of each page and in the right-hand column. But those same advertisers are likely to feature in the main search results, where they are not identified as sponsors. This, the Australian watchdog claims, constitutes an unfair trading practice.
The legal action has surprised the IT sector. Even in Australia, IT companies believed that the dispute over internet advertisers had been resolved by the Federal Trade Commission, the US regulator, as long ago as 2001.
The commission ruled that paid search results could be displayed to search engine users so long as they were clearly labelled as
sponsored links. Google and other big search engines such as Yahoo! and Microsoft have adopted the commission’s ruling.
John Butterworth, head of the Australian Interactive Media Industry, said last night:
I can’t see that there is any deception going on when they [Google] make it perfectly clear in writing that they have sponsored links.
The legal action arises from a separate investigation by the Australian competition watchdog, which started in 2005, after two car dealerships complained that potential customers who used Google to look them up were being first offered a link to a newspaper that carried used-car advertisements. The newspaper had paid Google for the right to use the names of the motor vehicle dealerships in its sponsored links, thus drawing people searching for the dealerships to the newspaper site. The newspaper was in competition with the motor vehicle dealerships for used-car buyers.
The threat to Google is that the courts will rule that it has a responsibility to police such behaviour. Google sells millions of keywords every day. Regulating auctions to make sure that bidders own any trade-marks they are trying to buy would be complicated.
The real risk is that similar rules would spill over into other parts of Google's business, to make the company responsible for all search results, not just the sponsored ones.
The group is involved in a legal battle involving YouTube. After buying the world’s largest video-sharing site for $1.65 billion last year, Google was served with a $1 billion lawsuit by Viacom, the media giant behind MTV, which alleged that Google was not doing enough to prevent the appearance of bootlegged clips.
If the courts agree with Viacom and Australia's car dealers that Google needs to be a policeman, the internet could be seriously affected.
MORE CLIX COMMENTS - Unfair to blame Google?
An excellent article. One can hardly blame Google that opportunist clients will use 'pay per click' campaigns targeted so they appear on the same page as their corporate competition. As more and more people are getting lazy and using the Google search bar to find a particular company's website they wish to visit e.g. typing in 'Hertz car hire' to find the Hertz website, rival local companies are using 'Hertz car hire' as their adwords so they appear in sponsored links on the same Google results page, no doubt hoping that their prices will appear more competitive and enquirers may click on their links.
One can argue about the ethics of this, but how or why should Google have to police and decide on the prohibitions that should be imposed.
As to why 'pay per click' advertisers also appear on the main page as well as in the sponsored links, isn't this just because of their good website optimisation? I'm sure it is in many cases, but would it be wrong to assume that Google may also (cunningly?) intervene so the search results it presents are 'customer relevant' to the key words typed in - so results do not simply become sourced to other displayed 'index list' websites that have signed up businesses from similar business sectors and mainly achieve high search rankings simply because of the high number of the reverse links to their own website.
Personally, I find these 'index' sites quite annoying as it seems you are often just repeating the Google search you have already made on the 'index' sites search facilities(usually unsophisticated facilities) and returning results that are usually not relevant.
The bottom line is that while some control in the sector could be productive, the bottom line is that Google needs to continually revise how it works in order to maintain its market sector i.e. satisfy the public the customers it serves. So far, in this Google has proved and is continuing to prove very adept.
Perhaps we should just let the market place decide.
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