Google and the EU: Still Grousing
January 18, 2011
It looks as though Google is suspected of having stepped over the hit-boosting line per EU Asks Advertisers: Does Google Manipulate Its Search Results?. To get to the bottom of things, the European Commission (EC) is circulating a survey to advertisers and vertical search engines in conjunction with an antitrust investigation. The questions ask things like whether or not increased ad spending improves search rankings and if Google’s AdWords makes advertising elsewhere too difficult to pursue.
Google’s Matt Cutts maintains “The only reasons I know of to go in and change [search rankings] manually is for security, a court order or spam. It is impossible to pay for a better ranking.”
For Google’s sake, they better hope those statements are true. Three companies have already filed complaints so the heat won’t be off until the investigation has time to garner some results. The threat of a damaged reputation or perhaps worse, the whole affair being thrown into the legal arena, is very real. Stay tuned for updates.
Sarah Rogers, January 18, 2011
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