Quote to Note: Google, the FTC, and the Public Good
March 21, 2015
I don’t care too much about the methods Google uses to generate revenue. For more than a decade, I have documented in my books and articles the tools available to a search vendor to perform results shaping, hit boosting, and semantic shading. Heck, I even offer an explanation of the methods available to those outside of Google to accomplish similar ends. I do these lectures for law enforcement and intelligence professionals, so you may have to work through my articles to piece together the who, what, how, when, and why.
I read “Take Google to Court, Staff Report Urged FTC.” Former middle school teachers, self appointed experts, and mid tier consultants have massaged this “revelation” in great and somewhat skewed detail. Suffice it to say, these folks have been uninformed about the GOOG and probably believe that Google enjoys a 65 percent share of North American Web search traffic. Hint: Google’s share of Web search traffic in Denmark and Germany is north of 95 percent. The good old USA is approaching that level of dominance. Take that ComScore and crunch your data again.
In the write up, which you may have to pay to read or go to a library and look for a hard copy of the newspaper, I noted this statement:
“Speculation about potential consumer and competitor harm turned out to be entirely wrong,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, said in a statement. “Since the investigation closed two years ago, the ways people access information online have increased dramatically, giving consumers more choice than ever before.”
There you go, Foundem, Yelp, and the other Web sites most vocal about Google search results. Google makes it clear that Google is doing great things.
Stephen E Arnold, March 21, 2015
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