Google offers clearer search labels after EU probe | Hacker News Reader

Google offers clearer search labels after EU probe

bbc.co.uk

26 pointsDanBC23 comments

>Microsoft-backed lobby group Initiative for a Competitive [Online] Marketplace

I hadn't heard of that before. It is… amusing, to say the least.

Nearly all the anti-Google groups that complain to competition authorities in any country are funded (at least in part, generally almost entirely) by Microsoft. The strategy seems to be "if we faced huge costs dealing with regulatory oversight, so should they."

Usually the case is - if an organization A is opposing or campaigning against an organization B then A is mostly likely to be funded by {C} which is an organization or a group of organizations opposed to A in a financial, philosophical or social way.

You might find this 2009 article from WIRED magazine amusing as well then: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/17-02/ff_killgoogle...

That story doesn't discuss ICOMP, but this 2010 Telegraph article does: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/8184065/Dark-forces-gu...

Can someone explain the EU's reasoning here? If Google promotes it's own services or even mixes ads with with search results, how is it "unfair" or in this case illegal?

Does Google actually promote links to their own services? (Outside of marked advertisements, I mean.) The article isn't totally clear on what 'ranking policy' refers to, exactly.

I know they have the ability to specially promote 'social' content that they think is relevant, and presumably that's tightly coupled to their services (but also supports Twitter and Facebook, as far as I know). Is there something else going on here?

If you type [AAPL] in the search box you get some nice information. Under that information, in small grey text, are links to other stuff.

    Google Finance - Yahoo Finance - MSN Money

I don't know if this has changed recently.

. . . this is a serious question, by the way.

It seems that an answer can be found here: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-383_en.htm. Most of the news is just parroting the least-useful bits of the press release.

Can't say I'm a fan of setting the precedent for content usage. The rest looks fine to me, though.

Try finding a video that isn't on YouTube without specifying the property in the search.

Why is this bad? If I put an address in Google, I expect a Google Map. I don't want them to send me to MapQuest.

Seems to work fine with a test search for [gangnam style]; the results page shows five videos, and only one is from YouTube: http://i.imgur.com/zv0TsRH.png

Now do a video search. Note the difference.

The top few are PSY's official channel and official videos, followed by videos on dailymotion, mtviggy, and jibjab. Paging through, I'd say about half of the results are from YouTube, mostly "how to dance gangnam style" home videos.

I don't see anything obviously wrong with these results.

If YouTube videos rank highly because Google is pushing them up, that's a problem. If YouTube videos rank highly because people like YouTube, that's not a problem.

Likewise, if someone has an official YouTube page and doesn't have an official page on some other video site, putting their official YouTube page at the top of the list of results is preferable from a user point of view.

If the real problem is that Google controls the 'best' video site, address that problem directly instead of trying to sway users by manipulating search results. If YouTube really is 'the best' then users won't stay away no matter what search results they get.

I have to move my laptop screen to see what is an ad and what is not. Forget about Google that tested this to death to confuse users, but not even FTC sees this as a problem. That should be illegal, ads should be clearly and unambiguously separated from content. Kudos to EU.

That makes me not trust a thing from Google, especially when they can make a buck. They even turned Shopping in 100% ads, without promptly disclosing it (you have to click on a tiny thing on the page to read that Google is listing results based on payment to Google)

Same with other Google content. Their claim to fame was impartiality but now the pages are 95%+ Google properties and ads. People, and I mean average Joe and Jane, should be updated on the change.

> I have to move my laptop screen to see what is an ad and what is not.

This is an indication you should look into calibrating your display. Right now, you're probably missing more than ad-outlines. It doesn't take very long.

But most people don't know their monitors can be calibrated, let alone how to do it.

So Google could chose colours that are less likely to be lost on poorly calibrated monitors.

What color do you suggest without making the text of the ad illegible? Perhaps a bright red border around the ads?

  > I have to move my laptop screen to see what is an ad
  > and what is not.

Do you have a screenshot? When I do a search, even for very ad-heavy queries such as [credit card], the ads are still clearly marked with colored backgrounds and notes like "Ads related to credit card".

  > They even turned Shopping in 100% ads, without promptly
  > disclosing it (you have to click on a tiny thing on the
  > page to read that Google is listing results based on
  > payment to Google)

In shopping, at the bottom of the page is a notice that "Google is compensated by these merchants. Payment is one of several factors used to rank these results." It appears to be about the same font size as the body text in ad blocks.

> Do you have a screenshot?

His screenshot on your screen will just show you what you always see. It's not going to show you what his screen displays.

EDIT: Here are some poor camera phone photos. The ads are clearly marked as ads, but at a normal viewing angle the background is almost invisible. This is on an uncalibrated old Lenovo thinkpad monitor.

(http://imgur.com/a/BKY4w#qcXWJdc)

Google should assume that people have shitty monitors and have no idea about calibration and make ads very clear. This is a complaint that was made when Google first started putting ads at the top of search.

Of course, they're free to not do that and carry on as they are, but they're likely to find regulatory interference increases in the EU.

  > His screenshot on your screen will just show you what
  > you always see. It's not going to show you what his
  > screen displays.

If he has an incorrectly-configured video driver or a program that modifies color temperature (such as f.lux), his screenshot would show it.

Seems glaringly obvious to me, a yellowish background that is more contrasty than the HackerNews background color, that's on a Dell 30" monitor, a MacBook Retina, and a ChromeBook. Google can't auto-detect people's monitor calibrations or poor contrast. You continually claim on HN that Google ads are so subtle that people are fooled into thinking they are regular content, but I don't know anyone is who is regularly fooled by Web ads, even elderly inlaws are who total computer newbies.

Secondly, Google does disclose that Shopping is paid inclusion, it quite clearly says "Sponsored", without a click through.

The claim is 95% of the content is Google properties and ads seems ridiculously hyperbolic.

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