They Might Be a Little Evil

Google deserves antitrust scrutiny not just for its control of search and web advertising, but also for engaging in very Microsoft-like tactics in the way it favors its preferred web browser software.

Mozilla Firefox famously has a very sweet deal over search referral revenue it receives from Google, a deal that other browsers don't get -- not IE certainly, and not Opera, iRider, Safari or anyone else. Mozilla's is being revised now because Google has produced its own browser called Chrome. Google leverages all the eyeballs that see its search pages in order to promote Chrome very aggressively. This isn't quite like bundling IE with Windows, but it's definitely a dominant company using its leverage aggressively, and it's amazing how little skepticism there's been about the politics of Chrome.

And I'm surprised Lyons didn't mention Google's acquisition of DoubleClick, a big internet advertising company. One wonders whether that deal would have been approved now, after the sudden demise of laissez faire orthodoxy.

The true evil genius behind Google's advertising is that it's search RESULTS look very much like its search ADS. So, let's say you search 'drivers' for a particular printer. You will get the printer's company, the printer's driver, and anything having to do with the printer's name. So, if a company wants you to purchase access to otherwise FREE drivers, there it will be, offering to install the driver with its software, for a price. You don't have to purchase the driver if you get to the printer makers' website, but you WON'T find the printer maker's website on the first page, or maybe the second page. This is the true evil of Google--it controls whatever you might associate to--and, if you are not careful, you will PAY.

there is only one answer to this problem...

george bush did it. and dick cheney too. that bastard.

Google is more than a little bit evil. They are no better than Microsoft has been about their software monopoly on the market. I am a paid search advertising professional and have worked all angles of the business from client to specialist at one of the primary engines. Google employs tactics to pit advertisers against one another to create bid inflation and drive out certain advertisers. Yes, it???s an auction but it???s also finely manipulated by Google using "algorithm" changes and preferential treatment to certain advertisers within their specific advertising channel.
Google has done a very good job with their branding making them a household name. The strength in their branding and perception has fooled people into thinking they play fair. The do not and I for one, would love to see them fall.

Google is more than a little bit evil. They are no better than Microsoft has been about their software monopoly on the market. I am a paid search advertising professional and have worked all angles of the business from client to specialist at one of the primary engines. Google employs tactics to pit advertisers against one another to create bid inflation and drive out certain advertisers. Yes, it???s an auction but it???s also finely manipulated by Google using "algorithm" changes and preferential treatment to certain advertisers within their specific advertising channel.
Google has done a very good job with their branding making them a household name. The strength in their branding and perception has fooled people into thinking they play fair. The do not and I for one, would love to see them fall.

Google is now playing the old "Earn $1 an envelope stuffing envelopes" scam from years back. They tell you if you pay $2 for the "kit", they will pay you for posting advertisement websites on Google. So you send away for the kit and find out all it was was a way to show you that if you start your own internet business, they will show you how to get your website closer to the top of the advertisement chain (That's right, pay Google more, and your website gets closer to the the top of the search engine for your business keywords searched).
Now this article is saying that you might not even be getting what you payed for. Jeeeez!!!

Et tu Google???

The best haircut I ever had was free.
The Linux core is more stable and less restrictive than any Win core, but MS has spent a lot of money on their slick-interface.
It is only a matter of time before a Linux interface is refined enough to be considered as user-friendly as MS.
What will happen then? Better bet MS will adopt Sun Microsystem's business model and offer a free version of their OS to sell add-ons to.
Also, if MS tries to charge Vista owners to upgrade to Windows 7, I'm going to travel to MS Headquarted and throw feces at their building.

Google is fine! They have Americans working for them! The government should look at Microsoft more closely for a variety of reasons during this tough economic time, mainly for the thousands of H1B visas they issue annually. Obama better make Microsoft employ more Americans! Because at the moment for every one person that gets laid of in Redmond, Washington by Microsoft, there's about 3-4 Indians/Chinese people that get hired overseas. This is the company that the government should really be focusing on -- not Google, sheesh.

The author seems to imply that the case against Miscoshaft's Windoze is over and past history. Well I doubt it. I believe the Obama Administration will be looking at them again and wondering why 95% of all PCs sold in the U.S. have Windoze pre-installed on them. Maybe they can tell us why Linux has been left out due to exclusionary agreements, the very kind the Clinton Administration was investigating until Bush & his pals won the election. Windoze had eight years of a free ride. Now the piper's coming back again. Good.

In response to the comments....its important to keep in mind that the justice department is "sniffing around," not filing charges, and there is a HUGE difference in their rise in the market compared to Microsofts. Google built their empire against much competition, and there is no argument that people have a choice of which search engine to go to. Microsoft's products were more or less thrown in your face and there wasn't much room for others to compete. In terms of a monopoly on online advertising costs, if the overall market wasn't where Google says it is.....wouldn't you see a huge price difference in the PPC costs on Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and the like? They are all pretty much in line.

With the opening I though this going to be about eBay.

Boy I'm glad this article and others like it are being written. Am I the only one who's been starting to get a very Terminator/Skynet feeling about Google lately?

Someone needs to publicly address their borderline-gimmick Adsense program as well. I know plenty of webmasters who have come forth with stories of Google using their sites for their ads, promising a share in revenue, then turning around and withholding payments from webmasters on unspecified grounds of "invalid activity" when they've in fact done nothing wrong. Unless you're some big LLC site, they rape the little guy left and right, swallow them whole, then move on to the next eager applicant. It's a legitimate gig, or scam, operating boldfaced under an otherwise respected corporation.

Boy I'm glad this article and others like it are being written. Am I the only one who's been starting to get a very Terminator/Skynet feeling about Google lately?

Someone needs to publicly address their borderline-gimmick Adsense program as well. I know plenty of webmasters who have come forth with stories of Google using their sites for their ads, promising a share in revenue, then turning around and withholding payments from webmasters on unspecified grounds of "invalid activity" when they've in fact done nothing wrong. Unless you're some big LLC site, they rape the little guy left and right, swallow them whole, then move on to the next eager applicant. It's a legitimate gig, or scam, operating boldfaced under an otherwise respected corporation.

Lets not forget the OTHER side of that revenue stream. As I understand it, close to half of Google's paid clicks come from that little code that millions of website owners place on their websites, where Google makes money regardless of how the end user got to those sites. Yet Google doesn't disclose to it's publishers (such as myself) how much revenue was actually earned from my websites. Not the gross, not the percentages, nothing. So they ahve a built in means to increase revenues as wiil, simply by choosing to keep more.

It would have been nice of the author to dig a little deeper before blasting the hidden auction. It works in the advertiser's favor if they are remotely sophisticated. Yahoo, who bought the company that pioneered search advertising many years ago, finally transitioned from open bids to a very similar system long after Microsoft and Google showed that it was much better, avoiding many troublesome problems like bid inflation, "pinning", and other things that made bidding very volatile and expensive.