This story will give 3 examples of how Google needs to be slapped down for their unfair practices. This case will be made clearly with screenshot photos, but the next paragraph is dedicated to the defense of Google on one controversial decision.
Many said that Google caved in on their original mission statement of doing no evil when they agreed with the Chinese government to censure their search engine in order to get the powers that be to accept their presense on China's Internet. I disagree wholeheartedly. It's better to be in that major country with limitations than allowing another competitor. So, I completely disagree with the critics on that one. I think that was just good business.
3 Creeping Evils at Google:
1. In the screenshot photo above, it shows that Yahoo.com still outranks Google.com, yet if you have downloaded the Google toolbar, then you can see that in the past few months, Google changed their algorithms to make Google.com have a page rank of 10 while Yahoo.com has a page rank of 9. At the beginning of the summer of 2007. Google ranked Yahoo higher as they should. Granted this is a small and debateable infraction, but as time goes on, my bet is that you'll see Google taking advantage of their position in the search engine wars.
2. Look at the screenshot below and you'll see that on many natural searches, Google has cheated and put their Google Local program above all the natural searches. Google controls this space. The space is supposed to be the organic space, but Google has grabbed not only the advertising space above the natural searches, but now they are manipulating and controlling that sacred space that consumers have entrusted them with. End of the world? No, but it's a sign of Google's drift towards being sneaky. Of course they will say that consumers want this.
I think consumers would prefer untainted searches.
3. One that jumped out at me the other day was their new Google checkout logo (see photo below) that dominates the search page with logo leaping off the page with brilliant colors while all the competition remains in monotonous blue. The whole page is blue, but Google takes advantage of others competitors by not allowing them to use logos or color on the Adsense ads. If Google was fighting for financial survival, I'd cut them slack, but their stock is fast approaching the $1000 per share mark. This is absolutely spitting in the face of the advertisers that have made Google what it is today. Google is killing their own advertisers and making up special rules for their own products. They are headed down the anti trust Microsoft path. These are subtle things granted, but they are clear indicators of the creeping corruption you'll be seeing more and more of if we don't speak out. Can you image Google letting PayPal have the only colored logo on a search page?
No comments:
Post a Comment