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>There is no way for him to get rid of the ad next to the Google listing. >So he wants the free traffic but not to pay for it in any way? If people are specifi

>There is no way for him to get rid of the ad next to the Google listing. >So he wants the free traffic but not to pay for it in any way? If people are specifically looking for his business he doesn’t want the competitors business to be able to buy an ad that pops up before the user searching for his business. That has nothing to do with wanting free traffic for nothing. This guy has likely already built a website that is optimized for google search, likely uses paid gmail/google apps, probably registered all his info in google maps...that’s a lot of free data entry for google so their product is better and some of those business services are paid. So now that you use their paid services and probably paid for web development/SEO up to Google’s lastest standards, your business comes up #1 on google searches...and they sell an ad before your result. There is no great real world example, but imagine you have a brick and mortar and sign a commercial lease in a shopping center, then the landlord rents signage in front of your sign to a competitor. Of course he’d always be happy to rent you the 2nd signage if you beat your competitors bid.

ariwilson 7y ago
What is the lease in this example? I don't think "optimizing your website for SEO" or "using other Google products" is anywhere close to the kind of specific relationship a lease implies.
- will_brown 7y ago
  You may have missed this: >There is no great real world example, but imagine... Well for each one of Google’s services there are legal agreements between them and the business. Landlords and google may not be exact but in both instances businesses are dependent, and business don’t just pay google/landlords, business improve and bring value to both google/property. In the case of property a restaurant may do a $1M buildout and the landlord will benefit later if he can release to another restaurant who can reuse the buildout. Or maybe your Walmart and an anchor store bringing customer making the rest of the locations more valuable for the landlord. Google benefits through better products: search results, maps, business info (hours, phone, etc...). The signage seems apt, as a business if I invest in the google ecosystem and make their products better it’s at the very least bizarre they would benefit by selling ads for my business name to my competitors. Basically it’s saying as business succeed on google, google is going to make more money advertising your value to competitors.
Zak 7y ago
I think a better real-world example would be paying a third-party for a billboard near a competitor's location. Nobody's rights are violated by that. There's no conflict of business interests. That's just competition. I think it's the same with running ads against searches for a competitor; Google does not take payment for search placement nor provide unrelated benefits to paid users of its services.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  There's no conflict of business interests. That's just competition. I think it's the same with running ads against searches for a competitor; Google does not take payment for search placement nor provide unrelated benefits to paid users of its services. This is (now) wrong. Google search-rank ads show up in the search results with only minor indicia that they are ads. This is very different from what Google used to do--keep ads and search results separate with clear visual indications of what content was ads.
  - Zak 7y ago
    I wasn't aware of that (I always use adblockers). I don't like that at all, and after reading it I'm now expecting Google products to try to trick me into doing things that are profitable for Google, which Google knows were not my intent.
  - nostrademons 7y ago
    Is that actually true? I just searched for [flowers] and [car insurance], two notoriously commercial queries, and the ads were all labeled with "Ad" in a green box, with organic results below the fold. While you might take issue with all the above-the-fold space being taken up by advertisements and local results, I don't think you can get much clearer than having each advertisement say "Ad". That's a lot more distinction than you get with say TV or print ads.
    - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
      I totally disagree with the statement "I don't think you can get much clearer than having each advertisement say "Ad"." If you want much clearer, just look at Google circa around 15 years ago, where ads had a much greater visual distinction with a blue background color, or in the right gutter. And, of course, Google knows this. The past 10-15 years has seen a sea change where ads look more and more like natural search results, and as they've taken up more and more real estate. It used to be you could compete with having good SEO positioning, but now SEO positioning is almost irrelevant for any commercial terms (except for how it affects your AdWords bidding positioning), as basically everything above the fold is just ads now.
wbl 7y ago
And? Yellow Pages did the same thing. Every ad was next to dozens of competitors.
- will_brown 7y ago
  In no way did the yellow pages create a dynamic bidding war with competitors for ads next to your listing when people went to find your number.
CPLX 7y ago
There’s actually a pretty good real world metaphor when you realize that Google is a telecommunications company. Imagine if when people called your restaurant to make a reservation the phone company had someone else answer the phone first and suggest you try a different restaurant. No metaphor is perfect but that’s pretty reasonable. Conceptually Google is some kind of an amalgamation of a common carrier and natural regulated monopoly at this point and should be treated as such.
- ohithereyou 7y ago
  A similar issue with a phone company lead to the first creation of an automatic telephone exchange[1]: >Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, one of whom was the wife of a competitor. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators, was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch
  - WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
    Ever been so pissed at a dude's wife, you invented a major telecom technology that took over the world and lead to better stuff?
- gowld 7y ago
  Like the Yellow Pages, where your phone listing is immediately adjacent to listings for all your competitors.
  - Untit1ed 7y ago
    I'd argue this use of Google is more like the White Pages, where you look up by name alphabetically. Yellow Pages would be more like googling "<cuisine> Restaurant in <town>", in which case displaying with all your competitors is much more reasonable.

ariwilson 7y ago

What is the lease in this example? I don't think "optimizing your website for SEO" or "using other Google products" is anywhere close to the kind of specific relationship a lease implies.

will_brown 7y ago
You may have missed this: >There is no great real world example, but imagine... Well for each one of Google’s services there are legal agreements between them and the business. Landlords and google may not be exact but in both instances businesses are dependent, and business don’t just pay google/landlords, business improve and bring value to both google/property. In the case of property a restaurant may do a $1M buildout and the landlord will benefit later if he can release to another restaurant who can reuse the buildout. Or maybe your Walmart and an anchor store bringing customer making the rest of the locations more valuable for the landlord. Google benefits through better products: search results, maps, business info (hours, phone, etc...). The signage seems apt, as a business if I invest in the google ecosystem and make their products better it’s at the very least bizarre they would benefit by selling ads for my business name to my competitors. Basically it’s saying as business succeed on google, google is going to make more money advertising your value to competitors.

Zak 7y ago

I think a better real-world example would be paying a third-party for a billboard near a competitor's location. Nobody's rights are violated by that. There's no conflict of business interests. That's just competition. I think it's the same with running ads against searches for a competitor; Google does not take payment for search placement nor provide unrelated benefits to paid users of its services.

gamblor956 7y ago
There's no conflict of business interests. That's just competition. I think it's the same with running ads against searches for a competitor; Google does not take payment for search placement nor provide unrelated benefits to paid users of its services. This is (now) wrong. Google search-rank ads show up in the search results with only minor indicia that they are ads. This is very different from what Google used to do--keep ads and search results separate with clear visual indications of what content was ads.
- Zak 7y ago
  I wasn't aware of that (I always use adblockers). I don't like that at all, and after reading it I'm now expecting Google products to try to trick me into doing things that are profitable for Google, which Google knows were not my intent.
- nostrademons 7y ago
  Is that actually true? I just searched for [flowers] and [car insurance], two notoriously commercial queries, and the ads were all labeled with "Ad" in a green box, with organic results below the fold. While you might take issue with all the above-the-fold space being taken up by advertisements and local results, I don't think you can get much clearer than having each advertisement say "Ad". That's a lot more distinction than you get with say TV or print ads.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    I totally disagree with the statement "I don't think you can get much clearer than having each advertisement say "Ad"." If you want much clearer, just look at Google circa around 15 years ago, where ads had a much greater visual distinction with a blue background color, or in the right gutter. And, of course, Google knows this. The past 10-15 years has seen a sea change where ads look more and more like natural search results, and as they've taken up more and more real estate. It used to be you could compete with having good SEO positioning, but now SEO positioning is almost irrelevant for any commercial terms (except for how it affects your AdWords bidding positioning), as basically everything above the fold is just ads now.

wbl 7y ago

And? Yellow Pages did the same thing. Every ad was next to dozens of competitors.

will_brown 7y ago
In no way did the yellow pages create a dynamic bidding war with competitors for ads next to your listing when people went to find your number.

CPLX 7y ago

There’s actually a pretty good real world metaphor when you realize that Google is a telecommunications company. Imagine if when people called your restaurant to make a reservation the phone company had someone else answer the phone first and suggest you try a different restaurant. No metaphor is perfect but that’s pretty reasonable. Conceptually Google is some kind of an amalgamation of a common carrier and natural regulated monopoly at this point and should be treated as such.

ohithereyou 7y ago
A similar issue with a phone company lead to the first creation of an automatic telephone exchange[1]: >Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the local telephone operators, one of whom was the wife of a competitor. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the manual telephone exchange operators, was sending calls "to the undertaker" to her husband. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strowger_switch
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y ago
  Ever been so pissed at a dude's wife, you invented a major telecom technology that took over the world and lead to better stuff?
gowld 7y ago
Like the Yellow Pages, where your phone listing is immediately adjacent to listings for all your competitors.
- Untit1ed 7y ago
  I'd argue this use of Google is more like the White Pages, where you look up by name alphabetically. Yellow Pages would be more like googling "<cuisine> Restaurant in <town>", in which case displaying with all your competitors is much more reasonable.