Do We Really Want EU Bureaucrats Deciding What Google Search Results 'Should' Look Like?

from the this-won't-end-well dept

After a 20 month investigation, the FTC -- whose boss made it clear he absolutely wanted to bring down Google if he could -- couldn't find any evidence that Google's search results were somehow anticompetitive. All of the evidence pointed to the same basic thing: what Google did was for the benefit of its users. While some competitors were upset about it, antitrust should not be about propping up competitors who can't compete, especially if consumers are not being harmed. Besides, if you actually look at the "competitors" who complained the loudest, many of them are doing quite well these days.

Of course, those competitors who spent so much effort pushing to force Google through the antitrust gantlet were pretty upset about the end result. However, they knew what was coming next and warned that Europe would come out with an answer that was more to their liking. And the latest on the EU antitrust investigation suggests that, indeed, European bureaucrats somehow believe that they know better than Google what its search results should look like, and they're planning to force Google to change its results to the bureaucrats' liking.

[Europe's antitrust chief Joaquin] Almunia said in the interview: "We are still investigating, but my conviction is [Google] are diverting traffic," adding: "They are monetising this kind of business, the strong position they have in the general search market and this is not only a dominant position, I think -- I fear -- there is an abuse of this dominant position."

I'm not quite sure how one "diverts" traffic if the solution being provided is reasonably deemed to be better for the consumer. You can only show so many things on a search page, and Google spends a lot of effort figuring out which way seems to get the best results. No matter what, it's going to "divert" traffic from those it doesn't pick to those it does. But that's the business. The better it diverts traffic to help consumers, the better off the public is. And I'm not sure how the user is made "better off" by European politicians determining where Google needs to point people with its results.

Filed Under: antitrust, bureaucrats, eu, search

As Expected, FTC Announces Close Of Google Investigation With No Antitrust Charges, But Minor Tweaks To Biz Practices

from the no-surprise dept

It appears that the rumors from last month were entirely accurate. The FTC more or less has admitted that it can't find any real antitrust problems with Google, but did get Google to agree to a few minor tweaks in how it operates -- which lets the FTC declare victory. On the big question of antitrust, however, which Microsoft and other sites led the charge on, the FTC came up completely empty, noting that the goal Google's practices was, in fact, to offer a better consumer experience, rather than to be anti-competitive.

The biggest "change" to Google's business practices is really from an issue they inherited: the handling of Motorola's standards essential patents. We were among those confused by Google's decision a year ago to continue Motorola's more aggressive practices with its standards essential patents, basically trying to get injunctions to block competitors who don't license at the (way too high) rates that Motorola was offering. This made no sense to us at the time, given Google's previous statements about the problems of the patent system. Here was a case where they had a chance to put their words into further action, and they didn't. And that became the biggest part of the FTC settlement. Seems like Google could have avoided a headache just by backing down initially. Either way, even the "settlement" aspect here is really small. Google has agreed that before seeking an injunction, it'll go to arbitration to determine what is a "fair and reasonable" royalty on those patents. To be honest, this seems like the kind of thing that Google was probably perfectly happy to "cave" on -- and it almost makes you wonder if they kept up Motorola's practices just to give the FTC some "red meat" to make FTC boss Jon Liebowitz happy.

There were a few other small changes, such as allowing sites to opt out of just Google News if they don't like traffic. In the past, sites had to opt out of all Google search if they didn't want to appear in Google News -- and some incredibly shortsighted news publications didn't like that. So, basically, now Google is giving them the ability to hurt their own traffic from Google News if they so choose. Also, Google will allow companies to more easily manage ad campaigns across multiple platforms, rather than effectively making them repeat the process for multiple platforms.

The end result here, even as the FTC declares victory, has to be seen as a big victory for Google. It made a few tweaks to its business practices -- most of which it probably should have done anyway (and some of which I think it should go even further on). And on the big question of "antitrust" and "search bias" the FTC came up totally empty -- even as FTC boss Liebowitz made it clear that he would have loved it if breaking up Google's monopoly was his legacy. As the FTC announcement notes, try as hard as they could, they just couldn't make the claim stick. I love the begrudging language they use here:

The FTC conducted an extensive investigation into allegations that Google had manipulated its search algorithms to harm vertical websites and unfairly promote its own competing vertical properties, a practice commonly known as “search bias.” In particular, the FTC evaluated Google’s introduction of “Universal Search” – a product that prominently displays targeted Google properties in response to specific categories of searches, such as shopping and local – to determine whether Google used that product to reduce or eliminate a nascent competitive threat. Similarly, the investigation focused on the allegation that Google altered its search algorithms to demote certain vertical websites in an effort to reduce or eliminate a nascent competitive threat. According to the Commission statement, however, the FTC concluded that the introduction of Universal Search, as well as additional changes made to Google’s search algorithms – even those that may have had the effect of harming individual competitors – could be plausibly justified as innovations that improved Google’s product and the experience of its users. It therefore has chosen to close the investigation.

In the end, this seems like a massive waste of taxpayer money and the FTC's time and resources. While the announcement claims they got Google to agree to "significant" changes in its business practices, that's a laughable claim when you look at the details.

Filed Under: antitrust, bias, ftc, injunctions, jon liebowitz, patents, search, search bias, search neutrality, standards essential patents
Companies: google

FTC Now Likely To Admit That Google Does Not, In Fact, Violate Antitrust

from the could-have-done-that-early-on-and-saved-a-lot-of-effort dept

A few months ago, there were rumors that the FTC was ready to go after Google with antitrust charges, though we couldn't figure out how this made sense. At first the story was that it was abusing its search position, but there was little evidence to support it. Then there was talk of using its new ownership of Motorola to go after Google for abusing standards essential patents. But... that seemed like a really tangential way to attack Google. And, as more and more details came out, it increasingly looked like this was an effort by the FTC's chair, Jon Liebowitz, to cement a legacy. Along those lines, there were rumors that Google wasn't willing to just cave to demands for a settlement. The latest is that the FTC is likely to come out next week and say that there's no evidence that Google violated antitrust rules with favoring its own sites in search. The Justice Department could conceivably still go after Google, but it's unclear if there's real appetite there. As the report notes, Europe may be a different story. As we saw with the Microsoft antitrust effort, Europe defines "monopoly power" over markets much more loosely than the US does -- and often seems to use antitrust enforcement to punish successful US companies, rather than look at whether there's actual consumer harm. So, in that venue, it wouldn't be surprising to see Google pressured into a settlement of some sort.

Filed Under: antitrust, ftc, jon liebowitz, search
Companies: google

Funny How Copyright Holders Only Ramped Up Google DMCA Takedowns After SOPA Failed

from the why-help-yourself-when-the-government-can-do-it-for-you dept

We recently wrote about the massive increase in DMCA takedown notices concerning Google search results. They increased by a factor of ten in just the past six months. However, Julian Sanchez brought up a point that seems well worth repeating:

Funny how much less they were using Google takedowns before SOPA failed, when they were complaining about all the front-page pirate results.

Indeed. A big part of the argument in favor of SOPA was that it was apparently super easy to find infringing works via Google -- and (the copyright holders claimed) no easy way to get those works removed from Google. However, as the ensuing deluge of DMCA takedown requests shows, perhaps the real reason was that the big studios and labels (many of whom are near the top of the list of DMCA notice senders) apparently didn't want to have to actually do the work required of them under the law. In other words, as many people noted during the SOPA fight, it was a case of the big copyright players running to Congress to get them out of having to do some work. They pretended there were no existing remedies when the reality was they just didn't want to make use of them. It almost makes you wonder if they specifically chose not to make use of those remedies in an attempt to pretend that the situation was worse than it really is...

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, search, sopa, takedowns
Companies: google

DMCA Copyright Takedowns To Google Increased 10x In Just The Past Six Months

from the an-avalanche dept

Back in May, we wrote about Google adding a section in its Transparency Report focused specifically on all of the DMCA copyright takedowns it receives. That tool has provided a bunch of interesting data and information, mainly highlighting abuses of the DMCA process. It also shows the scale of DMCA takedown activity with Google. The latest is that Google has put out a blog post noting that when they launched that report, they were receiving approximately 250,000 DMCA takedowns a week. Today, it's up to 2.5 million per week. That's in just six months. Because that's insane, I'm going to repeat it: in just six months, the number of DMCA takedowns that Google receives has increased by a factor of 10 from 250,000 per week to 2.5 million.

The company also claims that it does the ensuing takedown in an average of just six hours -- even with having someone review each and every takedown, and even rejecting a few. They reject about 2.5% of takedown notices. Again, when you think about it, this remains incredible. They're actively reviewing 2.5 million takedowns a week, and not just reflexively removing all those results from search, but doing at least a quick reality check on them. There are still plenty of bogus takedowns, so the effort isn't perfect, but it is fairly incredible. Given how many times we see copyright maximalists complaining that Google doesn't take DMCA takedowns seriously, I wonder if anyone else out there processes so many DMCA notices in such a short period of time. I doubt it.

Also interesting: they're now making all of the data available for download, so perhaps we'll start to see some interesting research come out of this.

Either way, this should highlight just how ridiculous the current system is. When one company is processing over 10 million takedowns per month, the system is clearly broken. Maybe it's time to look at why -- but, of course, Congress just wants to stick its head in the sand instead.

Filed Under: dmca, search, takedowns
Companies: google

FTC Supposedly Getting Ready To Go After Google For Antitrust Violations

from the what-consumer-harm dept

Reuters is reporting that 4 out of 5 FTC Commissioners have decided they have enough evidence to go after Google for violating antitrust laws to "hurt its rivals." Details remain sparse, but it will be interesting to see any specifics once they're out, and how they show any kind of consumer harm. From what's been said in the past, it really feels like this is yet another case of going after a company because it's big, rather than because of any demonstrable problem. Tim Wu, who's been advising the FTC, has argued in the past that all you have to be is big to be a monopolist, but I don't see how that makes any sense. As we've discussed before, no one has provided a reasonable suggestion as to why Google should need to promote other search engines. Especially in this day and age when different services are eating away at Google from a variety of angles (Apple and Facebook have been quite successful), and considering that if the search results are bad, it's easy to switch to another search engine (I regularly use DuckDuckGo myself these days), I'm really curious as to what the harm here is. It sounds like we may find out soon.

Filed Under: antitrust, competition, consumer harm, ftc, search

Rupert Murdoch Admits Defeat: Now Wants London Times To Appear In Search Results

from the nobody-predicted-that dept

Remember back in 2009, when Techdirt reported that Rupert Murdoch hated Google so much he had decided to block the search engine from indexing his titles, even though this would inevitably cut down their visibility and online traffic? He obviously thought that he would put this upstart technology in its place, showing that mighty media moguls don't need this Internet thing in order to flourish just like they did 50 years ago. According to this story in paidContent, it seems that strategy hasn't worked out too well:

In the next few weeks, paidContent understands The Times' website will begin showing articles' first two sentences to search engines, in a marketing exercise designed to attract new subscribers.

The limited free preview does not alter News International's belief that it should continue charging for The Times (visitors will be invited to subscribe to read full articles). But it does suggest that, having signed up 130,751 digital subscribers since mid-2010, the publisher is having to look in new places to maintain customer acquisition momentum.

This shows that Murdoch has finally realized that being left out of Google is the online equivalent of not being listed in telephone directories in earlier times. It also suggests that attempts to gain subscribers for the online edition in other ways are not going so swimmingly, which must raise questions over the long-term viability of the paywalled approach for this title.

Murdoch's move comes at an interesting time for the newspaper industry in Germany. As we discussed recently, a law currently being considered there would require snippets to be licensed and paid for on the basis that search engines are gaining a benefit from even these short extracts. By allowing his title to be indexed and short excerpts to be displayed for free, Murdoch is essentially admitting that the marketing value of snippets to him outweighs any nominal loss due to Google's supposed free-riding -- as Techdirt suggested -- thus undermining the supposed justification for the German proposal.

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Filed Under: copyright, london times, paywalls, rupert murdoch, search, snippets
Companies: news corp.

Google's Autocomplete Dilemma: Every Concession Makes It Easier For The Next Person To Complain

from the infringement-vs.-defamation dept

Back when Google decided to be the arbiter of what words were strictly for infringement in its previously useful autocomplete function, some of us saw the looming danger of such a move, in that it opens up Google to requests for all kinds of autocomplete modifications. The theory was that Google could placate movie studios and record labels by refusing to let autocomplete add words like "torrent" to searches, because lord knows that there isn't a legitimate use for those damned things.

But the problem with the permission culture is that it lives by that old adage: give an inch and they will take a mile. So, as was inevitable, what began with "torrent" and media files soon became fights over autocompletes like "jew" and non-infringing search results. And, as Google opens the door another inch each time it caves in, the floodgates continue to threaten. It would be problematic for Google to assert selective moderation of autocomplete. If they will block autocomplete terms for media files, why not defamation? If they'll block defaming terms, why not parodies? If they'll block parodies, why not controversial negative articles?

That's how we've arrived in a world where the wife of a disgraced former German President is suing Google because autocomplete offers suggestions like "escort" and "prostitute" to complete a search of her name. Bettina Wulff is the wife of Christian Wulff, who resigned the Presidency amid allegations of corruption earlier in his career. For whatever reason, there have long been rumors that she had a colorful past and those rumors spread like wildfire on the internet.

"My pseudonym is supposedly 'Lady Victoria' and my workplace was apparently an establishment called 'Chateau Osnabrück,'" Wulff writes, according to Bild. She continues: "I have never worked as escort." The rumors have been very hurtful for her and her family, Wulff writes, describing her concern that her young son Leander might discover the speculation while surfing the Internet.

Wulff, working with her lawyers, has successfully sent a myriad of cease and desist notices to bloggers and television personalities, some of them quite well known in Germany. Assuming the allegations are as false as she claims, that's all good. But now she's bringing Google into the mix because autocomplete...you know...works the way it's supposed to.

But last week they took on Internet giant Google too, filing a defamation suit with the Hamburg district court to force the search engine to remove a long list of damaging terms recommended by its "Autocomplete" function in connection with Wulff. Google, which has refused to comply, claims that the search suggestions are simply the result of an algorithm. The company seems confident about the lawsuit, having won similar cases in court with claims that the search engine only reflects what people search for most often online.

But... thanks to Google's double standard in editing for copyright, it's making it easy for some to argue that it should also do the same for stories like this one:

Simply put, Google's position is this: In response to pressure from a powerful lobby, the company will block search terms and hits, forcing undesirable results lower on their list of links. But when it comes to individual people, Google unscrupulously links users to websites that violate their personal rights.

[....]It would appear that Google's position on intervening in search results and suggestions depends on the influence of the parties involved. It hides links to pirated material, but not those that violate personal rights, and it places links to its own products prominently in its supposedly objective results.

Google appears to choose what is objectionable based on what might be bad for business. The company may well come through Bettina Wulff's suit legally unscathed. But ethically, questions will remain. Google's choices in the matter seem opportunistic. Given the quasi-monopolist's powerful position in the market, that is unsettling.

Whether or not you agree those claims are accurate, you can't deny that Google made such arguments much, much easier when it started editing autocompletes and search results in favor of copyright holders.

Despite what I think is a common sense notion that Google shouldn't need to bend its autocomplete algorithm under notions of comfort, the fact that it's opened the door to doing this before will make replying to this and other suits more problematic. A Google spokesperson is quoted in the article saying that the company won't give in this time because its autocomplete suggestions are objective. That may have once been the case, but it simply isn't any more.

Filed Under: autocomplete, bettina wulff, defamation, double standard, edited results, germany, search
Companies: google

Murder Case Upended After Police Read Phone Texts Without A Warrant

from the get-a-warrant-maybe dept

There have been a number of cases on the legality of police going through your mobile phone, and the courts are basically all over the place on rulings, with very little guidance from the Supreme Court. You can find cases where it's legal and some where it's not. The Supreme Court had a chance to clarify and punted (as it often does these days), choosing instead to tap dance around the 4th Amendment issue and deal with the case on other grounds.

Now we've got yet another ruling saying that looking at texts without a warrant violates the 4th Amendment. The case involved a six year old boy who stopped breathing and later died. His mother had called the police to report the not breathing bit... and while the police were in the house, they picked up the mother's cell phone and noticed a written (but unsent) text to her boyfriend which suggested foul play:

Wat if I got 2 take him 2 da hospital wat do I say and dos marks on his neck omg

Other texts mentioned punching the kid. Not surprisingly, police used this to start a murder investigation, leading to the arrest of the kid's mother's boyfriend. Except... the court has now rejected much of the evidence because it was obtained in a manner that violated the 4th Amendment. Even though such info is clearly useful for the case, this (Rhode Island state) court didn't fall for the claim that "if it helps police, there aren't any 4th amendment concerns."

... the Defendant has a reasonable expectation of privacy in his text messages and in the apartment where the subject cell phones were searched and seized so as to grant him standing, under the Fourth Amendment, to challenge the legality of the searches and seizures of those phones and their contents by the police. Based on the tsunami of illegal evidence collected by the Cranston Police Department, this Court grants Defendant‘s suppression motions and excludes the State‘s core evidence from being used at trial, including the text messages, all cell phones and their contents, all cell phone records, and critical portions of the Defendant‘s videotaped statement and his written statement given to the police.

The ruling will almost certainly be appealed, and it's reasonable to want to make use of any evidence that points to a potential murder suspect (especially one who killed a six year old boy!). But, at the same time, we believe in the 4th Amendment for a reason -- and we expect law enforcement to live by that in collecting evidence, or we cross over into a police state (and yes, some people think we're already there). It's the cases like these that are often the toughest, because it's so tempting to come up with some sort of excuse to allow the evidence in order to lock up someone "bad." But at the same time, you want courts to recognize the importance of the 4th Amendment for all of those other cases where people get unfairly searched without a warrant.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, privacy, search, texts, warrants

RapidShare: It Ain't The Hosting, It's The Linking

from the quick,-look-over-there! dept

A few years ago, RapidShare and Megaupload were often mentioned in the same breath as the two "evils" of the internet, according to the MPAA. However, a few interesting things happened. First, Rapidshare won a series of lawsuits both in Europe and the US, that found its service to be legit. The company also went on something of a big time charm offensive, hiring a DC lobbyist to improve its image with politicians, as well as being much more proactive with the press. Finally, in the last few months, it's made even more efforts to stop its service from being used for infringing purposes.

The latest thing, though, seems particularly silly. At a conference, the company's Chief Legal Officer, Daniel Raimer, appears to be throwing links sites under the bus by claiming that they're the real problem, and storage sites shouldn't be lumped in with linking sites.

The thing is, both kinds of sites have both legal and illegal purposes, and it's silly and counterproductive for one kind to blame the other kind. Storage sites have perfectly reasonable uses, and RapidShare has been bending over backwards to be a good player in that space. But a user-generated site that includes links to content also can have perfectly legitimate and legal uses, and it seems particularly silly to assume otherwise. From a legal standpoint, both kinds of sites should have reasonable protections against infringement (though that doesn't always appear to be true once things get to court). But, even then, storage sites probably even have less of a reasonable claim under copyright law, because actual copies (reproduction rights) and distribution could potentially be attributed to them (though, clearly, they have reasonable claims of safe harbors). With links sites, they neither store nor transmit the content, and it's difficult to see how they infringe on any of the key rights associated with copyright, even outside of the basic safe harbors.

Filed Under: copyright, cyberlockers, hosting, linking, search
Companies: rapidshare