Comment by AJ007 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by AJ007 | Hacker News Reader

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Thankfully we have leaked documents from the US case.

Excerpt from Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only watching Google but also companies involved in abusive adware and spyware practices:

'At the same time, Google systematically applied lesser standards to its own services. Examining Google's launch report for a 2008 algorithm change, FTC staff said that Google elected to show its product search OneBox "regardless of the quality" of that result (footnote 119, citing GOOGLR-00330279-80) and despite "pretty terribly embarrassing failures" in returning low-quality results (footnote 170, citing GOOGWRIG-000041022). Indeed, Google's product search service apparently failed Google's standard criteria for being indexed by Google search (p.80 and footnote 461), yet Google nonetheless put the service in top positions (p.30 and footnote 170, citing GOOG-Texas-0199877-906).'

http://www.benedelman.org/news/040115-1.html

Were consumers hurt if Google de-ranked content which by even Google's own standards were better than its own? May be not, but it certainly peels away any idea of the integrity of algorithmic search.

Google's business is under attack from all fronts today. As business owners and those employed by internet businesses we are so fortunate as to not have to rely on Google anymore for our audiences. We have have search from two major app stores, and more if you are international. Social can deliver new users at a greater rate than search. There was a day where Google penalized your company, and the next day you fired everyone.

In the next year or so we may start seeing ultra-cheap Chinese smartphones flood the market with Google free Android. Interesting thing commenters here seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google Android devices if they sell Google Android.

Idealy some lines are drawn so Facebook doesn't engage in similar abusive behavior against its users and customers. I don't have high hopes. If anything, the ability to avoid US penalties and the EU's late reaction time probably emboldens behavior by market leaders everywhere.

I don't understand what you're getting at. The "product search onebox" does not drive traffic to Google, it drives traffic away from it. For instance if I search for "bicycle helmet" the thing at the top of the page is the product search onebox, it contains five prominent links to sites where I can buy a bicycle helmet.

So I don't see what you are getting at. If anything, the product search onebox is the opposite of what the EU seems to be complaining about.

The question would be, how did those links in the OneBox get there? Is there harm in being the #1 search result, but not the first "result" on the page, because there's a OneBox above you with links from a different source?

I don't know. Apparently the merchants provide the information to Google directly in spreadsheets.

https://support.google.com/merchants/answer/160637?hl=en

As for your other question about being the #1 result but being ranked below paying advertisers, I'm not sure. Nobody deserves the #1 spot, it's not a natural right granted by your creator. In fact "the #1 search result" varies from query to query and from one user to the next based on their own Google account, if they have one.

> Ben Edelman, whose done a damn good job over the years not only watching Google

Ben Edelman is a smart fellow; I've known him for 15 years or so. But he is a paid Microsoft consultant and advisor. Perhaps he's right on some of these points, but I also suspect that if Microsoft would stop writing him checks very quickly if he suddenly started declaring that Google's actions benefited consumers.

You might as well quote a paid Democratic party consultant doing a "damn good job over the years" describing how evil those dastardly Republicans are.

Well if we're making those kind of accusations:

\* Maybe the FTC would not have dropped the investigation despite finding potential evidence of harm [1] if Google hadn't paid to "honor" the chairman during the investigation [2].

\* And maybe the FTC would not have felt politically pressured to drop the investigation of Google didn't pay more millions than any other tech company to "lobby" the government [3].

I notice that whenever Edelman is mentioned Google apologists such as yourself or Googlers like DannyBee resort to ad hominem attacks rather than address any of the actual arguments he puts out. Do you know if anybody has refuted any of his points? Because I'm genuinely curious.

1. http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-o...

2. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2013-02-28/google-hel...

3. http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/indusclient.php?id=B12&year...

"Interesting thing commenters here seem to not know, device manufacturers are not allowed to sell any non-Google Android devices if they sell Google Android." - This is one of those MADA terms few Google supporters understand. Samsung, for example, is prohibited from releasing Google-free Android unless they wholesale give up on all Google Apps on every device they sell.

This made it difficult for Amazon to enter the tablet market with Kindle Fire: almost all manufacturers were unwilling to make it for them, because Google would kick them out of the OHA if they did, and they'd be unable to make Google-based Android phones.

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