More European Accusations Against Google
August 6, 2014
Despite its previous European legal woes, Google is retains its manipulative ways, at least according to Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Axel Springer, a prominant German media company. Neowin shares with us these latest allegations in, “CEO of European Publishing Giant Accuses Google of Downgrading Rivals’ Search Results.”
Writer Andy Weir reports on a recent BBC radio show, during which both Döpfner and Google communications VP Rachel Whetstone spoke about the issue. Döpfner insisted that Google regularly finesses its search results to its advantage, pointing to one particular algorithm change he says led to a 70% decrease in his company’s site traffic. Whetstone admits that “sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t” promote Google’s products over those of the competition in search results. (Yet she insists their “don’t be evil” motto, which began as “don’t let money affect your search rankings,” remains intact.)
The part that really caught my eye, though, had to do with the European Commission’s curious reaction. Weir writes:
[Döpfner] added that the European Commission’s proposal to deal with this – in response to numerous complaints from businesses large and small across Europe – will simply “make things worse” for companies. As part of that proposal, he said that Google would still be able to downgrade its rivals results, but would be forced to provide advertising space which companies could buy, in order to position their results more prominently against those of Google’s own products.
“This is a very strange proposal,” he continued. “I would call that ‘protection money’. I mean, it is basically the business principles of the Mafia – you say ‘either you pay, or we shoot you’. I think that is not the solution for the problem.”
I can see the reasoning there. Not surprisingly, though, Whetstone disagreed with the comparison.
Cynthia Murrell, August 06, 2014
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
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