"Masie (Google south Africa country director) says: "TDS/Yellowpages has been categorised as a direct sales operation (DSO) account and will now be managed by my Google SA sales team within company"."
you can google the quote if you want to find the full story... they indexed it already ... :)
"The statement goes on to say that Google intended to pitch directly for the account with the Yellow Pages. “Google SA announced that Yellow Pages is in fact a ‘named account' that they intended servicing directly as part of their greater strategy within SA.”
Entelligence says even after the company engaged with Google SA on the matter, the search giant continued to pursue the business. “The managing director of TDS intervened on 14 August and sent a very clear request to the country manager of Google SA, requesting that it respect the agreement in place between TDS and Entelligence.”
The company says Google is now employing a strong-arm tactic against Entelligence. “Google SA has now informed Entelligence that they will inhibit our ability to continue servicing Yellow Pages by refusing to renew our accounts held with Google and that they will prevent us from creating any new accounts in an attempt to service Yellow Pages.”"
Eggs and baskets.
Google may win this one, but i'm sure that advertising agencies take note that Google is not their friend. Despite the NY times article last week describing how Google sends its staff into those agencies to win them over.
