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With each AdWords display change, Google's been adding billions of dollars to their revenue by confusing and fooling their users and blurring the line between t

• dehrmann 7y ago
  For branded keywords, it's not just shady, it's racketeering. You wouldn't want your competitor to show up first when someone searches for your brand, would you? Then pay up. E.g. https://i.imgur.com/SfomkdQ.png; https://i.imgur.com/SfomkdQ.png; the second result is a competitor's ad, the third result is the organic result.
  • Jerry2 7y ago
    This is what Basecamp has been complaining about for a while now too [1]. They even testified in front of Congress about it [2]. [1] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/google-paid-search-ads-shakedown-basecamp-ceo-says.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/04/google-paid-search-ads-shake... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/technology/antitrust-hearing-boulder-colorado.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/technology/antitrust-hear...
    • pbhjpbhj 7y ago
      Surely racketeering is legal in USA, the President described applying undue and immoral pressure through dominance as "perfect". Unclear how it could possibly be illegal, given USA's continued endorsement of such behaviour.
  • threatofrain 7y ago
    If my Michelin alternative Yalp became influential and I allowed restaurants to bubble up to the top based on money, am I engaging in racketeering?
  • bduerst 7y ago
    The difference being that you pay magnitudes less for your branded keywords than the competition, through the quality score. Allowing companies to advertise against their peers is actually creating more competition on the marketplace (which is a good thing). Edit: Disclosure - I work at Google but this is my own opinion on multi-sided markets
    • bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      more competition is not synonymous with good, it is a thing that can have good effects or bad. If for example changes to the marketplace makes it harder to determine who is a fraud and who is not or simply making it difficult to determine the quality of products, competition between the companies with the quality products and fraudsters may increase and that would be a bad thing.
    • underwater 7y ago
      Advocating strongly for your employer and their business practices without disclosing the conflict of interest is essentially astroturfing.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      • bduerst 7y ago
        You're right, edited my comment to be more clear that this is my opinion only. I don't use an anonymous username on HN because, as you saw in my profile before searching me, everything I say reflects my opinion only.
    • baq 7y ago
      Put that way, google is a market maker and hence should be regulated. Right now it’s an unsupervised private regulator, which doesn’t make sense.
      • deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  • droopyEyelids 7y ago
    It's Never Racketeering https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-dammit/ https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-...
    • drivebycomment 7y ago
      Thanks for the link. That's useful and entertaining at the same time.
  • d1zzy 7y ago
    This is a tricky proposition. Google has free speech rights to display whatever they want on their own server pages. These aren't statements of fact so it's not falling under libel & co. It's like saying that you want to regulate what can advertising companies display on billboards, ex. they cannot display competitor's ads nearby your company's offices. Since the billboard space is private and owned by the ad company (similarly to the ad space on Google servers served pages), they get too decide to put there whatever they want (barring free speech limiting regulations).
• b3kart 7y ago
  Never seen this image before. Fascinating. A damning visualisation of Google's slow but steady descent into a soulless money-making machine.