Unless you have been living under a rock it is a well known fact that Google; the worlds search darling, makes copious amounts of money from its AdSense to the point that Sergy and the boys can sell enough shares on a regular basis in amounts that almost every person in Canada could retire comfortably.
As much as Google might be a search engine it is also a money machine that espouses a do no evil mantra; however that mantra is really getting to be old and should be replaced with show me the money. They are a corporation that might have started as two Stanford geeks in a garage but they have learned the tricks of corporatedom very quickly.
One of the tricks they have learned is to screw your customers but in such a way that won’t upset them too much and you can still take their money – in other words pimp the hell out of yourself at every turn. They do this by placing their various services as tips at the top of the search results page – even above the the sponsored AdSense links. This might have been a borderline questionable practice but then they step over the line by giving themselves an advantage of including a graphic – which occurs nowhere else. In fact Google frowns on any attempt to beautify search results to the point your AdSense account can be suspended.
Is this a level playing field? Of course not and to expect any corporation that controls the internet the way that Google does to play fair is living in a dream world. A dream world that until recently Blake Ross basked in the glow of as Google promoted Firefox to the world as the only real web browser. That was until Google began showing its ads tips in the user’s prime viewing range which he came out with some strong opinions against. As he notes:
Google is now displaying “tips” that point searchers to Google Calendar, Blogger and Picasa for any search phrase that includes “calendar” (e.g. Yahoo calendar), “blog” and “photo sharing,” respectively. This is clearly bad for competitors, and it’s also a bad sign for Google. But I generally support anything that benefits users, including monopolistic packaging. I believe, for instance, that shipping Internet Explorer with Windows was a good move. So why are tips bad for users?
Blake goes on to add that this new age bundling is far worse that anything Microsoft could do:
… and in many ways, Google’s new age “bundling” is far worse than anything Microsoft did or even could do. Microsoft threw spaghetti at the wall and hoped it stuck, and likewise there’s nothing wrong with Google’s arbitrary front page ads. The difference here is that Google knows what users want and can discreetly recommend its products at the right time. Microsoft can’t easily hide a program packaged with Windows (and doing so would defeat the purpose), but competitors can only discover Google’s bundling, which might be transient or limited to certain regions, through trial and error searching.
Now I respect Blake for coming out with his opinion on this but what happens now? Does he translate that opinion into action? Will we see Firefox disassociate it self from Google and all those dollars that are supporting the Firefox/Mozilla organization either directly or indirectly. Just how strong are convictions in the light of Google Power; after all say the wrong thing and you could literally vanish from the great Google index.
Welcome to the world of corporate pimping Blake – I hope you like your bed partners.
UPDATE:
There has been a bit of a discussion going on in the comments to this post among which is some feedback from Blake in which he points out that I am making some assumptions about him and he has requested that I update the post to reflect this ..
From the comments:
Steven: I appreciate your response.
You make an assumption here:
> A dream world that until recently Blake Ross basked in the glow of as Google promoted Firefox to the world as the only real web browserThe assumption is that I support advertising Firefox to the exclusion of all other browsers.
You make another here:
> Will we see Firefox disassociate it self from Google and all those dollars that are supporting the Firefox/Mozilla organization either directly or indirectlyThe assumption is that I have the ability to do that. I would expect the post to be updated in light of the corrections.
Thanks, Blake
So to clarify Blake – I did not intend to imply that you supported exculsionary advertising that would benefit Firefox and nor do I think that you hold any special powers within Firefox/Mozilla that would change the current status quo. If I did appear to suggest either of those two things as fact I apologize. – Steven
UPDATE:
Matt Cutts chimes in on the discussion over Blakes post and in it he has a Q&A of which this is one:
Q: Is it fair that people hold Google to a higher bar than anyone else in the search industry?
A: Whether it’s fair or not, it’s a fact that people expect more from Google than other companies. People compare other search engines to Google, but people compare Google to perfection. We have such passionate users that they’ll complain loudly if they think Google is ever straying from the right path. If you’re a Googler, it may feel frustrating. Instead, I’d choose to be grateful, because that passionate feedback keeps our heads on straight. When our users yell at Google, they care and want us to do the right thing (for their idea of what the right thing is). What other company gets that kind of feedback? Besides, if Yahoo or Microsoft jumped off a building, would you jump off too? So yes, if the decision were up to me, I’d remove these tips or scale them way back by making sure that they are very relevant and targeted.
Matt, you (meaning Google) set yourselves up for this type thing the moment your founders uttered the now famous saying do no evil and it has nothing to do about whether or not Google delivers better results. It has to do with the fact that as a corporation Google is beginning to show that it isn’t living up to that ethos that touched a nerve of your userbase in the beginning.
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