Texas Attorney General 'Investigating' Google, With Little Basis In Reality

from the not-this-again dept

I'm beginning to think we need a series of posts on "State Attorneys General Gone Wild." We've discussed the insider's view from Topix' Chris Tolles about how state attorneys general grandstand against tech sites, despite having absolutely no legal basis. We've seen it happen over and over and over and over and over again (most recently with Craigslist -- a favorite target).

Late Friday, the news broke that Texas' AG was "investigating" Google for antitrust violations, using the trio of companies that have been mentioned for a while now -- Foundem, MyTriggers and TradeComet -- who have all been making a stink about how Google is somehow violating antitrust laws because those three sites don't like their rankings in Google. All three claim that they're competitors to Google, and Google is somehow trying to hold them down. This is, frankly, ridiculous. As has been explained over and over again, rankings are an opinion, protected by free speech rights. And, furthermore, if Google was really trying to keep competitors down, wouldn't it actually focus on players that actually matter in the space? Besides, if you look on Google, you can easily find highly ranked links to all sorts of Google competitors. It's also worth mentioning, of course, that all three of these companies have some sort of connection to Microsoft.

So, once again, we have some silly grandstanding, and it's not at all clear what Texas has to do with any of this. None of the companies are based in Texas, and Google's not breaking any laws here. It seems like just more grandstanding by a state AG against Google. It'll be interesting to see what happens, because unlike sites like Topix and Craigslist, Google might actually have enough clout to not just give in and settle.

Meanwhile, Danny Sullivan does a nice job summarizing the ridiculousness of this (that's the link above):

My view is the arguments are generally absurd. None of these companies are large enough to pose any threat to Google, to the degree it would be compelled to take such stupid action. Moreover, if Google's going to act to block a competitor, I'd expect it to pick bigger targets -- say like Microsoft.

And for the legal view, we turn to Eric Goldman who sums it up with the title "Are You Kidding Me???":

I'm always amazed by people who forget that Google's organic search and ad ordering are editorial processes fully protected by the First Amendment. Part of this myopia is Google's own fault. It has so successfully sold itself as a technology platform that we forget about the editorial processes embedded in its core business. As a result of those judgments, any legal challenges to Google's search practices runs squarely into serious First Amendment considerations.

I'm also intrigued by the potential role of 47 USC 230(c)(2), a federal law which basically insulates websites' filtering decisions from any state law causes of action (except state wiretapping laws and possibly state IP claims). The interplay between 230(c)(2) and antitrust claims is hardly clear, but it's possible that the Texas AG's efforts are completely preempted by the federal statute.

Goldman also wonders what the actual result would be if Texas AG Greg Abbott "succeeds" in forcing Google to change its ranking process: "Let's assume Texas can actually establish a case against Google's algorithms. Then what? Will Greg Abbott start telling Google how it should run its search engine? It's hard to imagine that the cure will be better than the disease."

Finally, and in a way that no one else can, the folks over at Groklaw has an astoundingly detailed look at how ridiculous this claim is.

Filed Under: antitrust, greg abbott, texas
Companies: foundem, google, microsoft, mytriggers, tradecomet

Why Is The NY Times Running A Ridiculous, Conflicted Op-Ed Against Google?

from the mistakes-galore dept

Paul Kedrosky points us to an absolutely ridiculous op-ed in the NY Times from a guy who runs a price comparison search engine that offered little of value and reasonably was punished by Google for it. But the guy tries to make a federal case out of his own poor ranking, suggesting that the government needs to regulate Google because the company was so bold as to recognize that people weren't searching for his lame price-comparison site and probably would find others more appropriate. Kedrosky picks apart the piece brilliantly:

Gosh, what a shocker. Someone in search with no web traffic.... wants someone in search with a lot of web traffic, Google, to send his company buckets of visitors. Amazing.

The OpEd goes downhill from there. We get a litany of silly complaints, like the idea that Google doesn't innovate, that it just buys stuff from others, and that Google's Maps and other products have hurt other companies. Yeesh. I'll say this really slowly: Consumers want products that work together, simplify our lives, and solve problems. For this nitwit to want to throw us back to a world where we need point products -- maps here, directions there, product search there, email over there, etc. -- as some sort of full-employment act for me-too companies that can't get web traffic on their own merits is batshit nuts.

Furthermore, the guy's claim in the article that Google went out of its way to make his company "disappear" simply isn't supported by the evidence at all. Again, Kedrosky rips this argument to shreds:

Really? Google went out of its way to make a tiny product search company in the U.K. disappear? That would be a great story if true....

Trouble is, Google doesn't "disappear" other much larger product search companies, as a quick search for "canon prices" will show you. Up pops shopper.cnet.com, pricegrabber.com, and so on, as well as, of course, Google's own product search site.

If Google were really trying to "disappear" the competition, wouldn't it focus on sites that actually matter?

Kedrosky points out the other big problem with this OpEd as well. Despite this being written by someone who has a clear conflict of interest, he notes that you don't find this out until your well into the OpEd:

Of course, there is a second level of stupid to this piece, and that goes to the NYT itself. It took until the fourth paragraph of the piece until we find out that the OpEd author is, you know, conflicted in that he himself runs a search company (albeit one with negligible traffic). Not only that, he has an axe to grind, as he goes on in paragraph four to arm-wavingly allege that Google "disappeared" his site from its results.

It makes you wonder why the NY Times would allow such an OpEd to go forward. Kedrosky has his opinion: "apparently NY Times OpEds over the holidays are vetted by malnourished monkeys."

Filed Under: journalism, neutrality, oped, search engines
Companies: foundem, google, ny times