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Google Investigated By EC For Disadvantaging Rival Search Listings
The European Commission is to investigate Google, which has been accused of promoting its services over rival ones on its own search listing.The investigation has been brought about due to complaints made by price comparison website foundem.co.uk, Microsoft shopping site Ciao and French justice search engine ejustice.fr, all of which claim that Google is restricting their ranking online.
Google responded to the accusations by stating:
“Since we started Google we have worked hard to do the right thing by our users and our industry – ensuring that ads are always clearly marked, making it easy for users to take their data with them when they switch services and investing heavily in open source projects. But there’s always going to be room for improvement, and so we’ll be working with the Commission to address any concerns.”
According to The Wall Street Journal, The Commission has said that it will examine whether Google purposely lowered the ranking of its competitors on its unpaid search results in favour of its own services. The EC will also investigate whether the search giant lowered the sponsored search ‘Quality Score’ for competing companies.
The EC was also keen to stress: “This initiation of proceedings does not imply that the Commission has proof of any infringements. It only signifies that the Commission will conduct an in-depth investigation of the case as a matter of priority.”
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Getting Real : Why Google Can’t Lose In EU Investigation
Today’s announcement by the European Commission that it is launching a formal investigation into supposed allegations that Google may be doing some dodgy businesses comes as a sobering reality check into the power that the Internet behemoth wields over our lives.Google clearly cannot make everybody happy – especially the complainants – and the claims that it has illegally pushed its own services ahead of rivals on its search engine result pages and preventing publishers from striking deals with third party ad brokers can be partially disputed.
It’s interesting to note that one of the complainants, Foundem, said that Google should not be allowed to discriminate in favour of its own services and that Google should clearly label its own services in search results.
The UK-based entity has pushed for the concept of Search Neutrality which advocates that “the principle that Internet users should be in control of what content they view and what applications they use on the Internet”.
The issue is that Google runs a for-profit business that works by providing things for free and then charging the providers, not the users. Everything Google does, from Gmail to Youtube, follows this fundamental rule.
In the case of Foundem who said that Google pushed its own price comparison service above anybody else, we couldn’t find any hint of it, at least on Google.co.uk.
A quick search for price comparison sites, websites and a number of other keyword combinations brought up a wide variety of Foundem competitors like Pricerunner, Kelkoo or Moneysupermarket but not Google Shopping.
Google has been tinkering with comparison technology since the beginning of the year and it is only a matter of time before they launch their own comparison service.
When this time comes (and it will come, rest assured), comparison websites will have to take a long hard look at their business outlook and look elsewhere; putting all your eggs in the same basket was never an excellent strategy.
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Groupon Rumoured To Have Been Bought By Google For $2.5 Billion
Google is rumoured to have acquired online discount service Groupon for $2.5 billion.Vator TV reports that an unnamed source has confirmed that Google is to purchase the service for a whopping $2.5 billion. However, the companies are yet to make a formal announcement on the matter.
Talk of a deal between Google and Groupon was first reported on the 19 November, although it is only now that a deal appears to have been reached.
Groupon, which was founded in 2008, rakes in more than $50 million in revenue every month. An earlier fund raising session valued the company at over $1 billion. The company has over 20 million subscribers and operates in 29 countries.
The deals organisation had reportedly also been approached by Yahoo and eBay for a possible takeover. It was widely expected that eBay was going to be successful after Groupon announced a deal in October with the online auction company, which allowed eBay users to get local deals with the help of Groupon.
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Developers Stick Two Fingers Up To Facebook And Google With Chrome Tool
The Google vs Facebook data row has taken another twist after a third party developer introduced a tool for importing contact details into its Chrome browser.Users of both Facebook and Google Gmail have been unable to sync any contact details since the two Internet giants blocked each other from accessing each others data.
The row began when Google blocked Facebook from accessing Gmail, which led to the social network introducing a method around the block. Then, in a sudden u-turn, Facebook blocked Gmail too.
The developer behind the tool said: “Despite what Facebook says, if someone is your “friend” and you can see his/her email address on his/her Facebook info, they are probably OK with you emailing them. Facebook doesn’t let you export this data, so they expect you to click on each of your friends’ pages, copy their email address (or other contact information), and paste it into your email client. Kind of ridiculous? Yes.”
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Google Wave To Be Rescued By Apache
Developers behind Google Wave have filed an application with the Apache Software Foundation to include the programme in the Apache Incubator.Google had introduced Wave as a real-time collaboration project, set to allow users to access mail, communicate via instant messages and create and edit documents in real-time. However, Google had abandoned the project one year after its launch after it failed to take off.
Many developers who had worked on the project continued to develop Wave, making use of itsopen source components. Wave has now been remodelled as a server tool and developers are building a new software package called Wave In A Box (WAIB).
According to PC World, the developers have submitted the tool to the ASF are confident that it would be included in the Apache Incubator as soon as next week.
The Wave proposal submitted by the developers states: “Apache Wave is the project where wave technology is developed at Apache. Wave in a Box (WIAB) is the name of the main product at the moment, which is a server that hosts and federates waves, supports extensive APIs, and provides a rich web client.”
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Google Docs Adds Compact Controls & Drag-Drop Feature To File Uploads
Search giant Google has updated its cloud-based Office rival Docs by adding a new drag and drop feature for uploading documents as well as Compact Controls.In a company blog post, Google said that users will be able to easily upload their documents from their own computers to the cloud by simply dragging and dropping the file into the programme.
The company said: “Today we’re extending that functionality to the file upload page, making it even easier to move your files into the cloud.”
The new drag-drop feature comes after another recent update to the cloud based service, that allowed users to add images to their documents by dragging and dropping the file.
Another new addition to Google Docs is Compact Controls which are designed to save screen space. Users will be able to hide the control bar by going to View > Compact Controls. This particular feature is only available on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
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Google Docs Adds Compact Controls & Drag-Drop Feature To File Uploads
Search giant Google has updated its cloud-based Office rival Docs by adding a new drag and drop feature for uploading documents as well as Compact Controls.In a company blog post, Google said that users will be able to easily upload their documents from their own computers to the cloud by simply dragging and dropping the file into the programme.
The company said: “Today we’re extending that functionality to the file upload page, making it even easier to move your files into the cloud.”
The new drag-drop feature comes after another recent update to the cloud based service, that allowed users to add images to their documents by dragging and dropping the file.
Another new addition to Google Docs is Compact Controls which are designed to save screen space. Users will be able to hide the control bar by going to View > Compact Controls. This particular feature is only available on Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.
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New Google Doodle Offers Perfect Thanksgiving Feast
In its new Google Doodle celebrating the Thanksgiving Day, the search giant is dishing out popular festive food recipes by cookbook author and US TV chef Ina Garten.The latest seasonal Google Doodle comprises of photos of favourite Thanksgiving ingredients including turkey, wine, cranberries and other vegetables normally associated with the celebration.
When users click on the Doodle, they are redirected to this page, which contains Thanksgivingrecipes from Ina Garten commissioned by Google.
The dishes include ‘Perfect Roast Turkey with Herb and Apple Stuffing’, ‘Smashed Sweet Potatoes’, ‘Cranberry Fruit Conserve’ and ‘Pumpkin Banana Mousse Tart’ among others.
The company said in a statement to Cnet: “We’re celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday a little early this year and collaborated with Ina Garten, who brings a sense of warmth and style to her cooking. We hope our users enjoy her culinary advice and that it helps them get a head start on their dinner preparations.”
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Google In Talks For Miramax Screening Rights
Google is reportedly in talks with Filmyard Holdings to procure the digital screening rights to movies produced under the Miramax Studios banner.According to The New York Post, there have been claims from industry insiders that Google was negotiating a digital rights deal in order to offer more diverse and long-duration content on its YouTube online video platform.
Securing rights to movies produced by Miramax Studios could allow users to get their hands on a whole movie catalogue full of blockbuster movie titles like ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘No Country for Old Men’.
The move will also enable Google to offer more content to the subscribers of its Google TV IPTV platform.
YouTube has emerged as the most widely used video sharing and viewing platform in the world. According to Reuters Google have informed that users uploaded 35 hours of video every minute of last week.
A Google spokesperson told the NY Post that “We’re always talking to the studios about different things and Disney remains a valuable YouTube partner. Outside of that, we don’t comment on rumour or speculation.”
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Google Donates $100,000 To Help Save Turing Papers
Google has donated $100,000 to a group campaigning to save papers written by UK codebreaker Alan Turing, which go on sale at Christies auction house today.According to THINQ, the papers written by the mathematician, who was responsible for breaking German codes in World War II, are expected to fetch £300,000 and £500,000.
A campaign to stop the papers from leaving the country was started by IT journalist Gareth Halfacree. He plans to raise enough funds to purchase the papers at the auction and donate them to Bletchley Park, the hub of codebreaking during the war.
The fate of the campaign was looking bleak before Google came in with a donation of $100,000.
Google said in a statement: “Dr Turing is a hero to many of us at Google for his pioneering work on algorithms and the development of computer science. He’s also an important figure for many across the world who face homophobic attacks and bullying.”
It is now hoped that other tech giants will step in to help save the papers.
For more information or to make a donation, please visit the official fundraising page.
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