What is Searchviews?

Searchviews is the company blog of Reprise Media. We impart daily insights on Search Marketing, Social Media and SEO. Read More...

Contact Us

Send us a message at searchviews@
reprisemedia.com


Search

Archives


MyBlogLog - Readers

Legal Issues

« Previous Entries

Weekly Round-Up: Freedom Loving, Bar-B-Qing, Fireworks Lighting, Independence Day Edition

Written By Noah Mallin | July 3, 2008 | Share This |

Firecracker

Thank you Thomas Jefferson for winning us Americans the freedom to do our weekly wrap-up posts a day early. That’s what it’s all about isn’t it? Oh yeah and blowing off your pinkie with a firecracker – what, just me? So here’s your big ground meat patty full of search goodness hot off the grill:

Google and Family Guy Creator Sign Pact – One Participant Away From Being Described as an Axis of “Something”

Dirty purveyor of snigger-inducing non-sequitors and Seth MacFarlane joined forces this week to deliver ads in what was described in some quarters as a leveraging of Google’s ad network into a broadcast medium. Ahem. Really it’s more like when Ridley Scott is hired to bring some Hollywood cachet to the latest deodorant ad. Also, it’s old news repackaged, kind of like MacFarlane’s act of self-plagiarism American Dad.

(more…)

Online Advertising: Will Google Prove That Size Does Matter In Measurement Tools? Ad Planner Gives Glimpse at Vast Data Banks

Written By Noah Mallin | June 24, 2008 | Share This |

Bodybuilder

Google’s announcement of their new Ad Planner product today sounded innocuous enough:

“To make your life easier, we’re introducing Google Ad Planner, a research and media planning tool that connects advertisers and publishers. When using Google Ad Planner, simply enter demographics and sites associated with your target audience, and the tool will return information about sites (both on and off the Google content network) that your audience is likely to visit. You can drill down further to get more detail like demographics and related searches for a particular site, or you can get aggregate statistics for the sites you’ve added to your media plan.”

Well, gosh! How thoughtful, it’s all about making my life easier. Of course I’m not comScore , a company whose primary business is aggregating data for their clients for much the same purpose.

(more…)

Reverse Optimization: AP to Bloggers, “Hands Off!” ; Bloggers to AP, ”Don’t Make us Angry – You Wouldn’t Like Us When We’re Angry…” ; SearchViews Officially Joins AP Boycott

Written By Noah Mallin | June 16, 2008 | Share This |

Hulk

After hustling, begging, pleading and cajoling for every link we can get, it comes as a shock to find a content provider so out-to-lunch that they actually begrudge the link love. What’s up with that, Associated Press? The old media consortium of umpty-ump newspapers and other dying media types issued a blogger fatwa on Friday that temporarily got drowned out by GooHoo and Tim Russert’s death.

Seems that the AP sent a nasty latter to the operators of Drudge Retort, a user-powered news aggregator (and now aggravator, heh heh) like hundreds of others out there (not to be confused be-hatted muckracker Matt Drudge’s Drudge Report, which Retort was initially set up to combat.) Only this time the AP decided to get tough:

(more…)

Google Sued for Ad Fraud

Written By Drupad Sil | April 23, 2008 | Share This |

Google Legal

Legal firm Kabateck Brown Kellner filed a class action lawsuit against Google on Tuesday. The suit, filed on behalf of one David Almeida, accuses Google of deceiving its customers into paying for ads they didn’t expressly request. Elinor Mills at CNET gives the details:

“When participating in Google’s online auction-based advertising system, customers specify what they would be willing to pay for pay per-click for words or phrases that will trigger ads displayed on Google’s search site, as part of Google AdWords. They are also given the option of bidding for ads that appear on third-party Web sites, also called Google’s ‘content network’, which is part of Google AdSense.

On the system, customers see two blank boxes, one for typing in a bid for ads on Google.com, and another one, marked ‘optional’, for putting ads on content network sites. Sophisticated search engine marketers know to put a ‘0’ in the box for the content network AdSense sites if they don’t want ads there…

Google does not inform its advertisers that if they leave the box next to the content bid blank, Google will use the advertiser’s bid for clicks occurring on the content network, the lawsuit says.”

That’s not all, according to Dave Szetela at SearchEngineWatch:

“The truth is, advertisers don’t see this option during campaign creation. The only way for them to opt out of displaying ads on the content network is for advertisers to explicitly edit the settings of their campaign after creating it, and un-check the box labeled ‘Content Network’ – which is checked by default. Some would reason that this makes Google even more exposed to fraud charges.”

The question that people are raising is whether it makes sense for Google to knowingly exploit people using this tactic, draining Google advertisers of their online budgets. David Snyder at Marketing Pilgrim doesn’t think so:

“I’ve heard complaints such as these from several business owners…The issue is often discovered by advertisers when they see reports of low CTR.

The idea that Google would knowingly deceive advertisers seems a bit far fetched to me, well not that they would deceive, but that they did deceive.

Although I agree that they may have missed the boat on a usability flaw, which is something all of us are guilty of from time to time, I do not see that the giant of the online space has to gain by intentionally leading advertisers to third party publishers. In fact, such ad delivery means that Google has to give up a share of the advertising revenue earned. The company would probably prefer the ads be served on their own search network, where they can take in 100% of the revenue.”

We actually disagree. It’s definitely a gray area. The forced opt-out is a clear usability flaw of the kind that Google doesn’t typically make. But we also don’t think that someone at Google is intentionally trying to fleece advertisers by randomly placing their ads across a less relevant network.

This is more or less a legacy issue from the times when Google didn’t let you bid separately on content clicks - either you bought the whole shebang at the same price, or you were opted out of the network. The intent, at the time, was to prove to advertisers that the network had merit. Not necessarily equal to search, mind you (which is why the engines eventualyl allowed advertisers to set separate bid rates) but still valuable nontheless.

But at this point, the practice of auto-opting advertisers into the network, even if they leave the box blank, comes off as a bit sleazy.

Either way, it’s a story for AdWords advertisers to follow. Kabateck Brown Kellner has successfully sued Google for a $90 million click fraud settlement, and recently won a similar settlement from Yahoo. If the lawsuit is successful, and Google stops automatically extending campaigns into content, I wonder what the impact would be to their bottom-line? For now, Google has no comment.

Searchviews: Week in Review

Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 29, 2008 | Share This |

searchviewslogolarge.gif

This week in search engines and social media: Yahoo launched a couple of new initiatives, Microsoft got a big fine from the EU, and fake Facebook profiles are proved more trouble than they’re worth, at least in some parts of the world. And in other news… (more…)

EU Slaps Microsoft with $1.3B Anti-Trust Fine

Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 27, 2008 | Share This |

microsoft antitrust fines

Despite Microsoft’s recent promise to focus on interoperability, the EU’s European Commission today levied a $1.35 billion fine against the company for not complying with the EU’s 2004 order to provide interoperability information to its competition. This brings total Microsoft anti-trust fines from the EU to about $2.6 billion.

From TechCrunch:

At a press conference EC commissioner Neelie Kroes said of Microsoft’s last-minute overture last week: “We don’t want talk, we want compliance. If you cheat the rules, you will be caught.” She also noted that was Microsoft’s fifth announcement about improving interoperability.

Fake Facebook Profile Lands Moroccan Man 3-Year Jail Sentence

Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 26, 2008 | Share This |

facebook morocco fouad mortada

Moroccan computer engineer Fouad Mortada, pictured here, created a fake Facebook profile for a Moroccan prince. Fake profiles are nothing new to Facebook; do a search for any popular celebrity on the site and you’re bound to find a profile or ten.

But Moroccan courts have misinterpreted the just-for-fun profile as something malicious - impersonation and identity theft - and thus have ordered Mortada to pay a $1,000 fine and serve three years in prison. The blogosphere is up in arms, and rightfully so: the prince and Moroccan government should have gone a less litigious route in protecting the Moroccan prince’s personal brand, by asking Mortada for ownership of the profile rather than throwing him in jail.

Microsoft’s Yahoo Bid Update: Google’s Two Cents

Written By Sepideh Saremi | February 4, 2008 | Share This |

google microsoft yahoo bid

The big G didn’t waste a lot of time after Microsoft announced on Friday that it wanted to acquire Yahoo for $44.6 billion. In a blog post published Sunday, Google’s head lawyer, David Drummond, argued that Microsoft’s bid threatens the future of the Internet, wondering if it will make the Internet less open:

Microsoft plus Yahoo! equals an overwhelming share of instant messaging and web email accounts. And between them, the two companies operate the two most heavily trafficked portals on the Internet. Could a combination of the two take advantage of a PC software monopoly to unfairly limit the ability of consumers to freely access competitors’ email, IM, and web-based services?

Of course, what Drummond doesn’t mention is search share, which is likely a big part of Microsoft’s bid, because Yahoo is runner-up, even if by a long shot, to leader Google. That’s what Microsoft lawyer, Brad Smith, countered with in Microsoft’s statement yesterday:

The combination of Microsoft and Yahoo! will create a more competitive marketplace by establishing a compelling number two competitor for Internet search and online advertising. The alternative scenarios only lead to less competition on the Internet.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported today that Google CEO Eric Schmidt called Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang to lend a hand against the Microsoft bid, which some say means Google wants to take over Yahoo’s search arm. But there are arguments against Yahoo outsourcing search, like this one by Saul Hansell at Bits:

But for Yahoo not to be in search or in search advertising, I think, would consign it to a much smaller role in the future. Search is so much a part of how people navigate the Web that it is hard to imagine being a successful Web portal without search at the center. Moreover, there is no longer a strict difference between search ads — sold in a huge auction — and brand ads — sold by a sales force over lunch.

Clearly, search is a huge part of the Yahoo-Microsoft issue, and it will take some time and likely countless blog posts for everything to get hammered out.

Engine Trouble: Yahoo Layoffs, Strife at Ask.com Parent IAC

Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 30, 2008 | Share This |

sad-face.jpg

It’s been a somewhat sad few days in search engine news. First, hard days ahead for some Yahoo employees: a thousand of them will be laid off. The company’s earnings were for the last quarter were actually better than expected, but the problem is a bleak outlook for 2008. Yahoo’s leadership didn’t inspire confidence on the call, writes Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, and we agree with Kara Swisher, who pointed out the wait-and-see tone of Yahoo execs is what we’ve heard for months now. At the NYT, Saul Hansell called out the real problem, which is Yahoo’s lack of strategy:

Instead, Mr. Yang and Ms. Decker’s strategy is essentially “vision goes here.” They want to be the “starting point” for users on the Web. They want to be the “must buy” for advertisers. And Mr. Yang said he would assume an “aggressive investment posture.”

The only thing missing from that is the substance. Why would users start at Yahoo? How are advertisers going to find Yahoo superior? And what will the company invest in?

To be fair, I know there are many smart diligent executives working hard at Yahoo who think they have good answers to these questions. But they need support at the top.

Yahoo’s stock dropped nearly 10%. Perhaps the wrong people are being laid off?

Over at IAC, Ask.com’s parent company, what can only be described as the corporate equivalent of a catfight has CEO Barry Diller going up against backer Liberty Media, which wants to give him the boot. Kara Swisher explains what the fighting’s all about:

But the fight is a serious one for a number of high-profile Web companies within IAC, which was being restructured to stop just this kind of fighting between Diller and Malone.

Just how Diller has gone about rejiggering it all, in complicated spin-offs in a way that allegedly undercuts Liberty’s control yet again, is what set the new round of tensions off.

Those sites embroiled in the fighting include: Expedia, TicketMaster, LendingTree and Ask.

Diller’s one of a group of IAC execs Liberty wants to oust, and Diller recently retorted, “I am beginning to think these people are insane.” IAC stock has been trending down since November of last year, but here’s hoping Ask.com doesn’t get caught in the crossfire of this squabble.

Taking Ask to Task: Privacy Groups vs. AskEraser

Written By Sepideh Saremi | January 24, 2008 | Share This |

eraser.jpg

Last month, we reported that Ask.com’s AskEraser expanded privacy options, allowing users to opt out of having their search data tracked. Now privacy groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, are taking issue with AskEraser, calling it “unfair and deceptive” and lodging a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission.

The groups allege that AskEraser isn’t as pro-privacy as it claims, for three reasons (paraphrased): it requires cookie-blockers turned off in a browser for the installation of the AskEraser cookie, which then remember not to track that user; said cookie is a way to identify a user because of time stamps; and Ask can disable AskEraser without notice. Ask.com says they unsuccessfully tried to speak to EPIC before the group filed with the FTC, and that EPIC’s document is inaccurate and outdated. From Wired, which quotes Ask.com spokesman Nicholas Graham:

EPIC’s filing is flawed in the sense that the document they filed is factually inaccurate, and simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the functionality of our product. In addition, many of the issues they raise are outdated, while others are completely misguided from the outset, and others deal with changes that Ask.com already made to AskEraser weeks ago, and were subsequently posted publicly on our website.

Changes “made to AskEraser weeks ago” were editing the cookie settings so there’s no longer a time stamp, so at least part of EPIC’s claim is based on an outdated claim.

But what’s more interesting with this issue is Search Engine Land’s point wondering why these groups didn’t lead with the fact that that Ask.com actually does collect some data for its partners, most famous of whom is probably Google. From Search Engine Land:

That’s a far bigger issue, and I’m surprised EPIC didn’t lead with that, rather than the three other points that are easy to take apart. Someone engaging AskEraser probably does not understand or expect that their query and IP address, along with perhaps a unique cookie ID, is flowing over to Google so that Ask can retrieve ads. And they are not reasonably expecting they have to go to Google or another partner to try and delete information there (if they can — they probably can’t).

That’s the big flaw with AskEraser. The complain also notes that those using the Ask toolbar won’t get AskEraser protection, even if enabled. On that point, I think the FAQ is clear enough.

Ask.com is fairly thorough and forthcoming in its AskEraser FAQ, and AskEraser is definitely way ahead of the privacy policies of other engines. What do you think: Are the privacy groups’ claims that AskEraser is “unfair and deceptive” justified?

Further reading: See The Iconoclast for an in-depth explanation of the time-stamp issue, and Techdirt for an interesting take on the privacy groups.

« Previous Entries