According to the report, for one example, Google took content from companies like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Amazon. In the latter case, Google lifted product rankings and placed them in their own search results for those products. When the companies complained to Google about the process, Google threatened to remove them entirely from results. The Journal quotes this section of the report: “It is clear that Google’s threat was intended to produce, and did produce, the desired effect, which was to coerce Yelp and TripAdvisor into backing down.” The Commission ultimately had Google agree to let websites opt out of the process.
And this is one, why the authorities need to keep close tabs on large companies, and two, why the close ties between those same authorities and companies need to be severed as much as possible. Even mere lobbying should be illegal.
I guess “do no evil” has taken a vacation. I can’t say that I’m surprised by this.
http://googlereader.blogspot.nl/2013/07/a-final-farewell.html
I have a concrete confirmation that dne is officially a lie.
I am now on Newsblur and pay for it because that is what you taught me Google.
lobbying *is* illegal. We call it for what it is: bribe.
Lets take this with a grain of salt. Two of the three companies have a history of suing Google over where they fall in Google’s search results. Since Google is legally allowed to order their results however they want, these two companies are just whining because they think it will pay off more than innovating their services. They are also in league with Microsoft (surprise, surprise) in some kind of anti-google partnership.
This also smacks of the type of behavior seen by news agencies in Europe. They want Google to rank them high in the results, but they don’t want Google to show anyone the contents of their pages. How they are suppose to get traffic without readers being able to see what’s on the pages is beyond me.
The point of the matter here is that: “Google reportedly restricted websites that published its search results from collaborating with competing search engines. In other cases, Google refused to allow data obtained from its ad campaigns to be used in campaigns with other services.”
When companies complained about this, Google threatened them to remove them entirely from their search results.
It’s just business as usual.