Forum Moderators: goodroi
The chairman and top Republican on the Senate antitrust subcommittee have asked regulators to investigate Google Inc.'s search practices, saying they were concerned the company was biasing results to favor its own products.
The senators -- panel Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) -- sent a letter Monday to the Federal Trade Commission, which already is conducting a broad antitrust investigation into Google's business practices, including search and advertising.
Kohl and Lee questioned Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at a contentious hearing in September. Schmidt's answers, along with testimony from two Google competitors, raised questions that should be explored by regulators, the senators said in their letter to FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz.
"We believe these allegations regarding Google's search engine practices raise important competition issues," wrote Kohl and Lee, whose committee has been conducting its own review of Google. "We are committed to ensuring that consumers benefit from robust competition in online search and that the Internet remains the source of much free-market innovation."
Just search for 'books' or 'video' in Google. They are at #1
Just search for 'books' or 'video' in Google. They are at #1
I hope they do too, but I don't see any evidence with adsense or google products that relates to these allegations.
Just search for 'books' or 'video' in Google. They are at #1
[edited by: DeeCee at 8:21 pm (utc) on Dec 20, 2011]
here's something wierd... if you look for stuff like "search engine", "web search", "internet search" and "internet search engines" then they are nowhere near the top. they've put all their competitors first. that must be rigged, surely, because that's the kind of thing that they SHOULD be top of
As has been shown by quite a few of the current hearings with CEOs (or even our current Attorney General) on the carpet for various offenses, being "clueless" as you call it seems to be in fact a perfect condition to be in.
if you look for stuff like "search engine", "web search", "internet search" and "internet search engines" then they are nowhere near the top
on advice from counsel, I decline to answer
If they were more less partisan
Isn't this sort of like saying that grocery stores can't display their own generic brands in prominent positions.
You've got one (D) and one (R) leading this inquiry ... Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah)
Google boss Eric Schmidt is one of the nation’s most politically active business leaders — a man who uses the cachet of the company he leads, as well as his own charisma, to build strategic alliances in the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill.
In the 2008 election cycle, Schmidt campaigned actively for candidate Barack Obama from very early in primaries. Schmidt and his Google colleagues donated over $800,000 to Obama’s war chest, making the company one of his top-five contributors.
Saddled with the perception that it is a darling of the Obama administration, Google may have it tough with Republicans.
The company whose chief executive campaigned for President Obama stands to become a target of investigations by multiple committees.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has promised to be an aggressive watchdog as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has led congressional Republicans in questioning whether Google has inappropriate ties to the Obama administration.
Watchdogs have also questioned Google’s ties to Democrats. The pro-free-market group National Legal and Policy Center, for example, has labeled the company the Halliburton of the Obama years. Halliburton was closely associated with the administration of President George W. Bush.
I hope the court system makes Google reply to the allegations via email. Then the court should make their decision without any appeal.
Halliburton was closely associated with the administration of President George W. Bush
Your local grocery store has the right to promote whatever gives them highest profit. But they still show other brands right next to it, because otherwise their customers would not come. You do not find "store brands" at the front of the store, and "other equivalent brands" at some obscure hidden isle a mile by foot away. (The equivalence to Google showing themselves and people that pay them on the first pages, and "others" down on pages 4-100).
In theory Google has a right to do what they want, except that Google's entire search business is based on showing content "lifted" from unrelated copyright owners. No one goes to Google search "to see some good ads". They go there to find valid and unbiased references to real content.
(Note again that using other people's copyrighted content to attract users would be called theft if not done by a search engine with valid content prioritization.)
As Google prioritize their own products more and more, and send less and less valid visitors to other sites, they get themselves excluded from even being allowed to visit many web-sites. As a site owner, why would I pay good network and server bandwidth to provide Google with free content for their search pages, if Google is not a significant source of "human" traffic? Which in the end would be a downer on their search and advertising business. Who would want to visit or even show ads on a search engine missing large parts of the Internet's "good" content.
